The Word Family Game

Discovery:

Adapted from Sentence Contruction: Writing and Combining Standard English Sentences, by Alice C. Pack and Lynn E. Henrichsen (Newbury House Publishers, 1980):

“There are four classes of content words: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs.

“A content word in one class usually has related forms in other classes. All these related forms make up a word family.

“Some word families have forms in all four classes. Others do not.

Example: A grateful (adjective) man may show his gratitude (noun) by thanking someone gratefully (adverb). (In English there is no verb form to express this idea of being grateful or showing gratitude.)”

***

The following sentences all contain several unusual forms of content words. Most are real words, but one in each sentence is not. This fake word is an imaginary “fourth member” of its word family.

For instance, in the sentence, “The boy cleves,” the false word “cleves” is an imaginary verb form that completes the word family of cleverness, clever, and cleverly.

Can you tell what the false words are, as well as the three real members of their word families?

(NOTE: The answers are based on the lists in Sentence Construction. Other sources may differ.)

***

SENTENCES

1. You don’t have to review your tax form by yourself. It’s transferable; advante with a corrector.

2. Time may not be limitable. Humans cannot computably measure our temporariness.

3. At the moment when Pinocchio became a boy, did his soul essentialize itself, or was it reminiscently acquisitive?

4. Even before the coffin enters the chamber for a wake, funeral home directors preparatorily solemnize their space. The goal is to balance an atmosphere of familiarity for loved ones with an atmosphere that is endurable for acquaintances.

Image courtesy of factoidz.com.

Intelligent Design and the False Divide Between Evolution and Religion

Discovery:

The unstated major premise behind every argument Intelligent Design proponents employ is that science can somehow be used to support a supernatural cause. Everything boils down to this one (not inconsequential) assumption. It’s the reason that these and other promoters of “creation” models fight to have their ideas taught in science classrooms.

This assumption is wrong by definition. Science is defined by a particular method of gathering and evaluating information (the scientific method). Anything that proposes to call itself science must therefore follow this method. ID does not and cannot follow it. By calling itself science, ID confuses the compatible realms of science and theology, actively undermining the integrity of both.

To understand why ID doesn’t fall under the purview of science, it’s necessary to understand what science does as well as what it does not do.

The testable hypothesis is the crux of scientific method. A testable hypothesis is an answer to a question, phrased as a fact which can then be shown to be accurate or inaccurate through some form of experimentation.

For instance, you may start with the question, “Why is the sky blue?” You might form several hypotheses from this question, such as “The sky is blue because there’s a giant mirror up there reflecting the ocean.”

There are two potential outcomes when you formulate your hypothesis. If the mirror is there, then you’re correct. If the mirror isn’t there, then you’re wrong, and must offer a new hypothesis.

Although the mirror example may seem ridiculous to us these days, that’s only because we’ve been up there. We’ve seen for ourselves that there cannot be giant mirrors in the sky; we’ve tested this hypothesis. It failed, but until a few hundred years ago it would have been a perfectly viable notion.

By scientific standards, the ID hypothesis is much worse than the mirror hypothesis. Why? Because a mirror is something that we can observe. It exists in the material world, and not outside of it.

The purpose of the scientific method is to discover and describe natural processes, such as how clouds form. This is also the limit of science – it cannot be used to investigate anything outside of the natural world. The scientific method can only be used on hypotheses that fall within the realm of material testability. A supernatural creator is by definition “outside” the realm of purely natural processes, and therefore impossible to prove by scientific means.

How would one go about studying a being that is outside of observation? How would a scientist perform a controlled experiment to learn about the properties of something that purportedly does not have normal physical properties?

This is the entire problem with Intelligent Design. If you claim that the mechanism of creation is something that by definition cannot be proven using the scientific method, then you are dealing with something other than science – which is where it ought to stay.

* * * * *

Of course, that’s not what ID proponents will say. They’ll tell you that the “evolutionists” are trying to disprove god. They’ll tell you that they see things like irreducible complexity and the “fine-tuning” of the cosmological constants as evidence for creation that “Darwinists” ignore.

Both of these claims are misleading.

Many real scientists are atheists, it’s true. Their personal beliefs may or may not be a result of their scientific knowledge. It’s just as likely that many people who started out as atheists are attracted to science, rather than being actively deconverted by what they learn later on.

Whatever the case may be, focusing on the relatively high proportion of atheists in scientific pursuits ignores the fact that many scientists follow some kind of religious teaching. You’ll find every kind of belief system among scientists, from Christian to Pantheist.

Although our concern is with evolutionary scientists in particular, tenets of evolutionary theory have been independently verified in nearly every scientific field (the observed microevolution of viruses that made the “swine flu” and the subsequent vaccine possible, for instance). Because of this, most scientists accept the basic concepts of evolution, no matter what field they work in. So it’s not inappropriate to consider the scientific community as a whole.

It shouldn’t be surprising that so many religious people are comfortable with evolution. Many of the ancient religions, some of which are still around, practiced Earth worship, which is friendly to evolution. So are Deists, who believe that a god set the universe in motion but no longer actively participates.

Buddhists have long embraced the theory. As Radhika Abeysekera points out in her book, Practising the Dhamma with a View to Nibbāna: “It is also interesting to read of the Buddha’s description of life on Earth…Incidentally, this description is similar to the description of evolution given by scientists.”

Christianity as a whole does not reject evolution either. In 1996, Pope John Paul II said that evolution was “more than a hypothesis,” and that Charles Darwin’s ideas were sound, provided they took into account God’s responsibility for creation. A few years later, USA Today ran a story in which Pope Benedict XVI made a more nuanced proclamation:

"I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science," the pope was quoted as saying…Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.”

Although Pope Benedict’s comments are slightly more contentious than Pope John Paul’s, both are willing to accept the basic concepts of evolution without feeling that their faith need be threatened. That’s because most scientists and most religious leaders understand the very thing that Intelligent Design proponents do not: science cannot disprove a god anymore than it can prove it.

The misconception that the ID community pushes about there being some anti-religious component to evolution may be in part a reaction to a sense that science has somehow stripped off the perceived strength of their chosen god. But this need not be the only way to think about it. Yes, a vast number of phenomena can be explained by natural mechanisms that don’t “require” a god. But that doesn’t mean that those are the only mechanisms that have ever been at work.

As my mother, a devout evangelical (though not fundamentalist) Christian, is fond of pointing out, who’s to say how god chose to manifest the universe? Who’s to say god didn’t use the natural mechanisms of the Big Bang, chance, and punctuated equilibrium as a method of creation? Evolution doesn’t dispute any of these possibilities. It only disputes the idea that it can prove god through them.

* * * * *

The other wrongful portrayal that ID proponents present – that evolutionary scientists ignore criticisms of their own theory – is just as much hogwash. Even Darwin made changes to the theory during his lifetime.

Evolution today looks like Origin of the Species only in its most basic principles. Scientists are constantly tweaking their ideas. The entire reason that they use the scientific method is because it allows them to open up more questions.

This is not a weakness of evolution. It is its strength. Theories never go unchanged – Newton’s theories of motion, for example, had to be overhauled when Einstein came along. That’s how science works. It’s always provisional, building on ideas that work and discarding those that don’t.

There are legitimate debates about how evolution works, too. We debate how to draw the family tree. We wonder whether most changes are adaptive, or if factors like genetic drift also play a major role. We update our models of species classification, and adjust timelines when new evidence comes in. Although, as Pope Benedict said, we can’t go back and get all of prehistory into a lab, we can make plenty of testable hypotheses. Evolution has been borne out in every one of these.

One of the most famous examples of using the scientific method to make a prediction about evolution was conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Chicago, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Harvard University in 2004. This team looked at fossil evidence of fish to figure out what a transitional fossil between two species should be and what layer of rock it should be buried in. They then looked at geological maps to find out where in the world they might be able to find this fossilized fish. Their prediction turned out to be entirely correct: they discovered Tiktaalik roseae, a perfect fit between lobe-finned fish and the earliest known tetrapods.

The theory of evolution is, well, always evolving. But despite what ID claims, these changes support the theory rather than contradicting it.

So what of the other objections that Intelligent Designers lob against evolution? Unfortunately, most of them employ fallacious logic, are outdated or irrelevant. The reason that they work is simple – it takes much less time to make a false claim than it does to demonstrate why that claim is false. The ID community has all day to come up with illegitimate claims against evolution (far too many to go into here). Scientists can only devote a small portion of their time to explaining why those claims are wrong; most of their time is taken up by actually performing scientific investigations.

Besides, the few legitimate criticisms that ID proponents do have are also criticisms that are being investigated by real scientists, using hypotheses that can be tested. Having legitimate criticisms doesn’t make your ideas scientific.

The way that ID portrays it, evolution is an all-or-nothing scenario. Criticism of any part of the theory becomes a rebuttal against the whole thing, and any acceptance of it becomes a proclamation of atheism. These falsities constitute the real damage that they do to science – and human culture as a whole.

It should be noted that one cannot speak on this subject without a warning to scientists as well. A few voices in this community have adopted the thinking patterns of ID and actively sought to deconvert people to atheism via scientific evidence. It’s fine to be atheist and to promote atheism. Atheist scientists must be careful, though, in how they approach the argument. Science may certainly inform our beliefs about the world, but it cannot have the final word on god. Just as it can’t prove, it can’t absolutely rule out the existence of otherworldly beings. Nobody should pretend that it can.

Science can’t draw conclusions about things it can’t test. You can’t test a supernatural being. Because of that, Intelligent Design proponents can’t make testable hypotheses, and cannot correctly claim that their ideas belong in science classrooms.

The cultural wedge that Intelligent Design tries to force between religious communities and science is a damnable false dichotomy. For this reason it shouldn’t be taught anywhere.

Picture Credits:

1. Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics

2. The Search for Tiktaalik roseae

Podcasts: Media Democracy, Whenever You Want It

Journey:

National Public Radio is doing it. The Economist magazine is doing it. Your own sister may even be doing it.

Podcasting has become an international phenomenon that may change the very nature of television and radio. Yet relatively few people know what it is, and even fewer have yet to grasp its potential.

In the simplest of terms, a podcast is an audio file. Much like an mp3, you can download it from the Internet onto your computer or iPod, and then listen to it at your leisure. The most obvious advantage of this format is that, unlike a conventional broadcast, you don’t have to be tuned in at a particular time or place to receive it.

But there’s so much more about podcasting that makes it more attractive than “traditional” media.

Dan Carlin should know. Since 1989, he’s been immersed in media production, first on television and later on the radio. Today he makes his living as the host of two podcasts – Common Sense with Dan Carlin, a righteously indignant political talk show, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, wherein he recounts historical events through narrative.

Carlin was an early adaptor. Back in 1995 – ten years before the first modern podcasts – he was hosting a radio program called Crossfire. “I got a call from a guy from a software company,” he says, “and he offered to pay me more than I was making at that time.” He ended up working on a project with a web development company called Homebrew Networks that would put his audio content on the Internet.

“We wanted to demonstrate to people what was possible,” he says. Thus was born the first incarnation of his Common Sense show.

Carlin believes that podcasting can raise the bar of public discourse, especially among youth. “The level of engagement is much different,” he says. “We get a lot more college-aged people than we ever did before. We’re reaching segments of the population that it’s important to reach. When you’re that age, you’re still idealistic about politics. By the time people reach the age of the average radio listener, they’re done thinking about it.”

Since 2005, podcasting and its video counterpart – known as vodcasting – have blossomed, driven particularly by young web natives. The ability to access a file from any computer in the world at virtually no extra cost to the provider (or the listener) makes it an enticingly inexpensive investment with a limitless possibility for exposure. Unlike television, newspapers, and radio, there are no transmitters, presses, or other distribution costs involved. Any person with an Internet connection and a microphone can create one.

When iTunes burst onto the music scene, podcasts piggybacked on its success, taking advantage of the programs’ user-friendly browsing and listener-generated ratings system. Add to this the fact that an individual podcast can theoretically exist on the Internet forever, and you had all the makings of a media revolution. Thousands of podcasts now exist, covering topics that range from philosophy to Marie Dubuque’s Easy Peasy Gardening.

Carlin’s success as a podcaster is an illustration of the profitability of what, for all its advantages, remains largely a niche media product. “On the radio, 10,000 people in the area might be able to hear me,” he explains. “I’ll probably only appeal to about 2% of them. On the Internet, I’ll still capture that same core percentage, but of a much larger pie: everyone in the world.”

Podcasts have also brought back an age-old dream of amateur content that began with the advent of radio.

In its earliest days, radio was flooded with amateur broadcasters who conducted many groundbreaking experiments, often out of their own homes. In his book, Radio and Television Regulation, historian Hugh Richard Slotten says, “amateurs tended to view the spectrum as a new, wide-open frontier, akin to the American West, where men could pursue individual interests free from repressive authoritarian and hierarchical institutions.” He points out that in 1912 the New York Times estimated that there were several hundred thousand amateur stations in existence.

That same year the government passed the Radio Act of 1912, which required all broadcasters to obtain licenses. This was the beginning of a series of regulations that would eventually consolidate broadcast ownership in the hands of a powerful few for most of the 20th century.

It remains to be seen whether podcasting will meet a similar fate. For now, amateurs – and professionals – have found a new frontier.

Carlin hasn’t regretted his move from radio one bit. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he says. “Being in traditional media is horribly overrated, especially from a creative standpoint. In radio, for instance, your boss is the program director. He’d always be telling you what to do. But these people are the ones who failed at the same job you’re doing. It makes no sense. Now, nobody tells me what to do, and I’ve never been more proud of my work.”

Health Insurance: Not Like Car Insurance

Inquiry:

In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) talked up his committee’s proposals for health care reform. Although Hoyer spoke of retaining choice for Americans, host Robert Seigel pointed out that under the proposed plan people would effectively be penalized for not having insurance, because it included a 2.5% tax.

In response, Hoyer said, “Everybody needs to have health insurance, sort of like everybody needs to have automobile insurance. The reason for that is that we know accidents are inevitable, and we know as well that illness is inevitable.”

Whether one believes in mandatory health insurance or not, Hoyer’s analogy is poorly constructed.

First of all, inevitability has never been a precedent that lawmakers have applied uniformly. Death is more inevitable than sickness and much more likely than being in a car accident. Everyone dies. But no one would force you to buy life insurance.

Despite sharing a moniker, health insurance doesn’t resemble other types of insurance in other important ways. Most forms of insurance are meant to protect against some kind of unexpected catastrophe, such as a flood or fire. Some aspects of health insurance address the same kind of event, but the bulk of a health plan pays for what, in other realms, would be called maintenance. Annual checkups are not akin to car accidents; they are more like tune-ups. Your tire rotations aren’t paid for by Progressive. You don’t call AllState when your toilet backs up. You call a plumber.

If you decide not to call a plumber, though, the only person who suffers is you. The same is true if you ignore your health. This illustrates yet another area where Hoyer’s reasoning falls apart. Not every type of automobile insurance is mandatory. The only coverage mandated by the state is liability. Why? Because in an accident that involves two people, the responsible party needs to be able to repair the damage they’ve caused to someone else.

This distinction is vital. If you drive into a tree, it’s your problem. If your car gets broken into, it doesn’t affect anyone else. These kinds of insurance are not mandated precisely because personal risk is a personal (not social) responsibility.

Finally, automobile insurance is at the most basic level a voluntary “opt-in” cost. That is, you can avoid participating in insurance simply by not driving. Plenty of people do this. But you can’t live without your body. This makes compulsory health insurance an inescapable ultimatum that amounts to a tax on being alive. It takes away your freedom to not participate.

When then-candidate Obama unveiled his ideas for health care reform during the elections, he made a lot of noise about avoiding any kind of mandatory system. This won more support from self-identified Democratic voters during the primaries than Hillary Clinton’s plan, which included coercive structures. Siegel mentioned this to Hoyer during their discussion. Hoyer dismissed him by pointing out that Obama recognized the need to compromise. But it wouldn’t be Obama who would be compromised here – it would be the voters.

Health care does need reform. A nationalized system may be the best way to accomplish this. But there are better methods available to us than ones that rest on false analogies.

Tips on Arguing: Margin of Error

Inquiry:

Ever notice the way that news organizations will pelt you with polling data during an election cycle, and then wonder why the actual results defy the polls? There are a lot of reasons this happens, but one of the most pervasive is due to a misunderstanding about something called the margin of error.

Every survey contains an inherent margin of error that is calculated using methods developed by statisticians. The primary reason for doing this is that survey-takers only talk to a portion of the total population, and they can never be completely sure that those people are representative of the whole group. Some people lie. Some people forget to vote. Others change their minds. And there’s always the possibility that the people you didn’t ask would have given you completely different answers.

Figuring out what the margin of error is in a given case requires some mathematical background. Fortunately, this is often done for us ahead of time, and knowing how to interpret the result is a simple process that takes less than a minute. It’s so easy to do that any reporter who fails to account for the margin of error is practicing shoddy journalism.

So, let’s say that Bob and Carl are running for mayor of Blandeville. The night before the election, a poll of 500 registered voters reveals that 44% are in favor of Bob, and 51% are in favor of Carl (the rest are undecided), with a margin of error of ± (plus or minus) 4 percentage points. Carl must be a shoe-in, right?

Not necessarily. The margin of error shows that any of these numbers is likely to be four percent below or above what the pollsters determined. So, what the poll really says is that Carl’s chances may be as low as 47%, or as high as 55%. Likewise, Bob’s support may be anywhere from 40% to 48%.

Since Carl’s lowest score (47) is less than Bob’s highest (48), Bob may actually be ahead. Nobody who pays attention to this will be surprised if Bob ekes out a victory tomorrow.Don’t be fooled by people who ignore a margin of error. It can make all the difference.

What Other People - Part 3

The third and final chapter.

The drive back was ensconced in silence. Marianne slouched in her seat, resting her feet on the dashboard and pressing her forehead against the window. She didn’t look in my direction, and I kept my own eyes on the road. I was relieved to retreat into the automatic functions of driving. It allowed my mind to wander without confronting the reticent outcast to my right.

My thoughts were riddled with worries and questions. I replayed the scene that was still fresh in my memory, pondering whether I should have watched more closely. Marianne’s previous mood had been a cover, and I had known it. But complacency had lulled my reactions into an impotent haze. Now a sandstorm of ash and cigarettes whirled behind my eyes, clouding my confidences. Joe’s last words repeated like a foreboding soundtrack, and I couldn’t help but feel that they applied more to me than my friend. Although I hadn’t committed any crime, it would be a long time before I could show my face around Ken’s without intense pangs of shame.

We entered Marianne’s driveway and I cut the engine. She still did not move or speak, so I stared out the windshield. The lowest branches of the tree that hung over her drive waved broad shadows in front of me. Black leaves tossed and writhed, dragging the tree-fingers toward the ground. Autumn would arrive soon to sever them. The drained weights would collapse and blow away, so that the newly freed branches could rise tall against the sky once more while they slumbered in peace. If we sat in the car long enough, we might see it happen.

Just as the air seemed to grow crisp with a hint of the northerly shifts, Marianne turned and broke my reverie.

“Am I a ‘bad’ person?” she asked in a firm but colorless monotone.

“I don’t think you are. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

She snorted. “Don’t pay me lip service, Emmitt.”

I shrugged. “I’m not. You do some bad things, but so does everyone. I think you’re good, matter of fact.”

“How can you think that?”

I considered this for a moment.

“All that stuff you write and make – what is it you’re trying to create?”

“I don’t know… something beautiful… but it doesn’t make a difference. Everything’s ephemeral.”

“That’s true, I guess.” I gazed once more at the tree. “Anything you create will be destroyed, or fade.”

“I just want to be remembered for something. Something beautiful.”

“Remembered by who? People are ephemeral too. And a long time from now, after you’re gone, it won’t matter to you if anyone knows who you are.”

Marianne shifted uncomfortably in her seat, pulling her shirt down to cover her stomach. “I know. That’s why I can’t do it… Emmitt, I’ve destroyed so many things.”

“So have I. But it’s okay.”

Her voice grew impassioned for a moment. “No, it isn’t!” She twisted back around to face the window again.

“You’re right. It’s not okay. That’s what I mean. It’s not supposed to be. Things are tough to handle, and they often hurt a lot, but that’s the part that’s okay. It’s how life is.”

“Mark – I should have known this would happen,” she replied, still facing away. “He was always an earthquake, and they never leave anything but damage behind. Here…gone…nothing.”

“It’s how life is,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Life. Do you believe in past lives, Emmitt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither, but I’m starting to. Did you know that I don’t know how to swim?”

“Really? Why not?”

“My parents tried to teach me when I was young, but I refused to go in. Water terrified me. I couldn’t even look at a full sink without freaking out. I didn’t understand it. As I got older, I began having nightmares about it. I would be in what seemed to be a river, in the bluest-greenest waters… submerged. I could see the sunlight above me, somewhere just overhead, but something held me back from it, pushing me down. Bubbles everywhere. Beautiful bubbles of every size would swirl around me, running past me. I’d try to catch them, to grab anything. My chest would be in so much pain – aching and stabbing. But it was never any use. I’d just flail without moving. Then the sun would turn grey – and I’d wake up. It was horrible. I had the same dream over and over, for years.

“Then, one day, my mother and I were in New York City, and we stopped at a fortune teller’s. Before I said anything about the dreams or my fear, she told me I had drowned in a flood on the coast of Indonesia. And before that, I had been murdered in Estonia, also by drowning. She may have just made that stuff up, or gotten her cues from something about me. They do that a lot… it’s a good trick. But maybe she knew something I don’t.

“I’m still not sure about past lives, but if they do exist, then my karma must be pretty fucked up. I must have done some terrible, terrible deeds. It’s the only way I can explain my life now. But I guess that’s just how life is, right?”

Not sure how to reply, I cast my eyes toward Marianne’s house. From the outside, it appeared venerable and historic, a classic colonial accessory on a wooded hillside.

Wooden beams rose from the short front porch to the slanted overhang, where the second floor protruded slightly. Marianne’s living room windows were visible from here, though they were currently cloaked in draperies and obscurity. Inside, lives were led in haphazard styles. Miniature universes were created and tailored to the individuals who inhabited them. Across the street, where ostensibly similar houses stood, were other hidden microcosms. Could a person ever fit into any that was not his own?

“I don’t think you did anything to ‘deserve’ all that,” I said, looking again at Marianne.

“You’ve no clue all the things I’ve done.”

“And you don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve done some pretty bad shit, too.”

She waved my statement away with her hand. “Not as bad as me.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. That you recognize it as bad for you, that you’re sorry for it, is the first and most important step to getting beyond it. In this life.”

Now she turned toward me. “But how can I? Nobody else will forget what I do, no matter what. They always remember.”

“Marianne. Some people never forgive. Some things break. But you’ve got yourself. The only person who has to deal with it is you. And no one else can stop you from doing that.” For the first time since leaving the bar, Marianne smiled. A genuine, pleasant smile. Her bloodshot eyes grew crystalline once more.

“You know what I see when I look at you, Emmitt? I see kin.” She moved toward me, gently turning my head with one hand. Her lips met mine, slow and warm. It was comfortable. I felt the tenseness in my shoulders relaxing. And then, in a sea of fluid motion, the embrace ended.

“I cannot walk among the dead,” she said, gathering her purse. “I’m so tired I might pull a Rip Van Winkle.”

“Okay.” I felt her absence already.

“You may not be self-assertive enough yet,” she quipped, opening the car door to the crickets and stray cats outside. “But you’re good at taking care of people. I don’t know which is more important. Still, thank you.”

“What for?”

As she stepped out, Marianne said, “For taking care of me.” She closed the passenger door before I could react. I watched her walk to the porch, fumble with the lock, and disappear, consumed by the deeper blackness beyond her door.

Then I started my car and pulled away, knowing that the next time she called me I would not answer.



#

What Other People - Part 2

The second chapter of a three-part story.

I drove down the lamp lined Division Street with Marianne in the passenger seat as she rifled through a CD case. She was too drunk. She flipped incessantly, unable to locate the album she desperately needed to play for me.

“You’ll absolutely adore the Appleseed Cast,” she raved for the third time, pausing in her search and subsequently losing her place. “You’ll thank me for this later, I promise.”

“It makes no difference to me,” I replied. I was concentrating too hard on not swerving or crashing to worry about what was playing on the stereo. The current refrain of radio static had been satisfying enough during the past five minutes. I could drown my reeling head in the white noise.

She resumed scouring the pages. “It’s just… I know you like Radiohead… and The National… it’s sort of a cross between…” she came to the back of the case once more. “Goddamnit! I know you’re in here,” she railed at the sleeves full of round plastic. “You’re always here.”

She started over again.

Marianne’s mood had improved significantly over the course of the evening. Her naturally discordant personality continued to shine, but the potentially volatile attitude that recent events could have engendered didn’t seem ready to surface. Maybe she hadn’t had time to fully process the implications of being snubbed. Or perhaps she held tenaciously to the hope that the Mark debacle was only a hiccup on their path to reunion. Whatever the reason, the evening had been noticeably absent of any mention of the ex-boyfriend. Now, we were both placidly distracted by the liquid high of vodka and wine. The promise of beer and song to come kept our spirits elevated as well.

“It’s all right if you can’t find the CD,” I assured her, glancing over. “You can play it for me when we get back to your house. Later.”

“No, no. Now,” she said, not taking her eyes from the pages.

“All right… look, I’m almost out of gas, and I don’t want to have to get it when I’m even more wasted, and tired. Is it all right if we stop at the gas station up the street?”

She waved my comment away with one hand. “Go ‘head. Man’s gotta do yadda yadda.” She flipped another sheet, then stopped and looked up at me. “You, know, Emmitt, you never stand up for yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

Marianne pulled a lipstick from her green purse and stared at herself in the mirror through the darkness. She applied it as she explained. “Whenever anyone suggests anything, you go along with it like you don’t have an opinion. It makes you look weak and indecisive. And I know that’s not how you really are.”

I swerved slightly into the next lane, but quickly readjusted. “I don’t usually care what happens. I’m just sort of there.”

“Sure you care. I can tell, at least when you’re with me. You make comments. Your face always betrays your mood.” She puckered her lips at the mirror, then snapped the cap back on her lipstick.

“You’re saying my expression betrays me? I have a bad poker face?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You don’t smile when you’re frustrated. Your eyes get dark and far-off when you feel isolated. When you enjoy yourself, you’re more animated.”

“Those are just my moods, though. They don’t always come from what I’m doing.”

Her voice grew consoling. “Sometimes, though, you end up doing things you don’t really want to, just ‘cause someone else does.”

“Sometimes.”

“When you do that, you’re like a washing machine on a spin cycle. Like you can’t figure out where you are.”

“So what?”

Her tone got hard again. “So tell me what you want. Be more assertive.”

“I do tell you, when I have an idea. It just doesn’t happen that often.”

“No,” she countered. “You say, ‘is it all right if I stop for gas?’ You even have to ask permission for that, and you’re the one driving. Don’t do that shit. Say, ‘we’re stopping for gas, bitch. Deal.’”

“Do I have to say it like that?”

“Nah. Say it your way. But be firm. Girls like that.”

“…is that a joke?”

“Don’t ask! Even if I didn’t intend it as one, that’s what it was for you. Just laugh.”

“All right, all right,” I said, feeling harassed. “Ha ha. Happy?”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“I can’t help it.” We pulled into the gas station.

“Neither could Nietzsche, and he went crazy.”

“He had syphilis.”

As I opened my door to fill the car, she looked me sternly in the eyes. “And you’ll get it too, if you don’t say ‘no’ once in a while.”

I pumped the gas, the crisp black air of evening sharpening my senses and driving out some of the alcohol’s effects. I thought briefly about what Marianne had said. She was right: I did sometimes let things go that bothered me. It was part of what made me capable of my tolerant friendship with her. But it often led me to uncomfortable situations, or circumstances that inwardly I felt were not excellent uses for my time.

I watched the numbers rack up on the display, dizzying in their climb. I became temporarily mesmerized by the tick-tick of the screen. Then the hose jerked with the sudden halt of current, and my brain snapped once more back to attention, this time with a new resolution. I would try to consider my own opinions more and speak my mind more often. As long as I wasn’t being offensive, anyway.

I slipped back into the car, and we were off. We pulled into the parking lot of DeNiro’s Bar and Martini Lounge a few minutes later.

Marianne and I weaved our way across the pavement arm in arm. She was worse off than I, but my own balance was too debilitated to correct hers, and instead I stumbled around in the same ungainly fashion. The weekend crowd choked the entrance with coiling clouds of smokers, furiously puffing so that they could rejoin their drinks inside in as little time as possible. As we neared these patrons, the blue-green neon of the sign above cast sickly shadows upon their faces. They parted for us, slow and inept. I looked around, smiling stupidly. I could see the pockmarks and blemishes, the badly handled makeup highlighted by proximity. From inside, the cacophony of a local band emitted regular squeals and thumps.

Directly in front of the door stood Joe, the bouncer, like the chieftain of some wayward tribe. Despite his bulky shape and intimidating gaze, Joe was a friendly guy who loved to discuss philosophy and quantum physics. In a past conversation between us, he had mentioned Hegel, Bohr, and Aquinas in a single breath, leaving me dumbfounded and impressed. Being a bouncer was a secondary passion, something that his body appeared incidentally designed for. He was nonetheless good at that, too, and took his position seriously.

He towered in front of me. “Evening, Emmitt. Marianne.” His bass voice carried over the throng.

“Hey, Joe!” Marianne cried, a little too gaily.

“You guys all right tonight?”

“Sure, Joe. You?”

“I’m well, thanks, but that’s not what I meant. You both look like you’ve had your fill already.”

“Oh, nooo,” Marianne interjected. “Not even close.”

Joe took a long look at her, then turned toward me. “Listen,” he said. “Normally I wouldn’t mind, but we were raided last night. Apparently there was a complaint. Someone drove out of here a little too drunk. We can be held responsible for these things, and we can’t afford to have our liquor license suspended.”

“I know, I know,” I responded.

“I have to pee, Joe,” Marianne beseeched. “Can I please go pee?”

“Look,” he replied, turning to her with a pained expression. “Go to the bathroom. Then come right back to us.”

“He’s my ride,” Marianne snapped. “Where else would I go?” She slid past, into the dusky innards of the bar.

Once she was gone, Joe’s manner became more confidential. “Emmitt, I can’t let you come in while she’s like that. Not tonight.”

I pondered this development. It occurred to me that this could be an opportunity to assert myself, to push a barrier and see where it got me. “Are you positive there’s nothing you can do? Is Ken around? I could talk to him.”

“Yes, he’s here. He’ll tell you the same thing I just did, though.”

“Do you think I can ask anyhow? Marianne’s had a pretty bad day.”

Joe sighed. “All right. Stay with me, and I’ll get him for you. I can’t promise anything.” He pivoted on one foot and opened the door for me. The crashing of the band on one end of the main bar drove itself like a sledgehammer into my skull. Sweat and strong perfumes hung in the air like stalactites. I faltered slightly in my step, following him to a door adjacent to the bar. It read “Employees Only.”

“Wait here a second,” Joe commanded, and disappeared. As the door shut behind him, I caught sight of Marianne careening through the crowd to my right. I waved, and after a moment of hesitation, she understood and came over. Her hair was strewn haphazardly over her forehead, blackish and shiny in the dull red lighting.

“They gonna let us in?” she asked.

Before I could reply, Joe returned, trailed closely by Ken. Ken had a kindly bearded face that matched his disposition. He regularly drank with his customers, or joked around with the staff. When he laughed, his round belly heaved below the band t-shirts he wore. He reminded me of a deposed Santa Claus. Tonight, though, Saint Nick looked as if he’d had to put Vixen down for rabies.

Marianne spoke up first. “Ken, you’re not going to kick us out, are you? You wouldn’t do that.”

Ken sat himself on a nearby stool. “Marianne, dear. I don’t have a choice. This is beyond my ability to prevent.”

“No, no, Ken. It’s all right. See, we’re already here.”

“Not yet,” Joe interjected. “You know better.” He moved away from us back to the door, but stayed inside. I knew he was was listening to make certain that his employer’s decisions remained final.

Marianne scowled. “Ken, we came all this way. You know us. You know we won’t cause any trouble. We can stay. Nothing will happen.”

“Marianne, honey, I don’t expect you guys to do anything. But look: I have no way of knowing whether there are undercover police here now. I guarantee that there are cops waiting down the street. I have a full house, and every one of these people is a potential liability. So are you, simply by being here. I can’t take the risk of letting you two become worse than you are. You’re more than welcome, any other time – just please understand that tonight is unusual. It’s for your protection, too.”

“How can you say that? We’re okay. We’ll be careful.” Marianne’s eyes turned to lakes, the banks overflowing. “After all I’ve done…”

“It’s obvious that you’re not okay,” Ken replied. “You’re swaying and slurring right now, as you speak. I can’t.”

Marianne tried a new tactic, but was sobbing slightly between her sentences. “I helped you build this place up, Ken. I told my friends… I helped you, and you’re kicking me out.”

Ken’s belly heaved heavily as he sighed. “Understand, please. I’m very grateful for your support. I respect you, or else I wouldn’t be reasoning with you here, now. You’ll always have a place here.”

“No, no.” Marianne was crying unabashedly. A few curious customers were staring at us. I felt I had to do something, so I touched her on the shoulder.

“We can go somewhere else, or home, or come back tomorrow. It’s all right.”
She shoved me away. “No, we can’t! They kicked us out! We can’t…”

“Listen to Emmitt,” said Ken. “He’s making sense – he knows there’s no hard feelings. We’re still your friends.”

“You wouldn’t do this if you were my friend! Never!” She was practically screaming, and half the bar was watching her. She twisted angrily on her heels and strode towards the door. I ran to catch up with her, but she was outside by the time I could react. I shot a bewildered look at Joe, who was still guarding the entrance from the inside. He shrugged at me and shook his head.

Then, before either of us could stop it, Marianne caught hold of the ashtray, a garbage-can-sized receptacle that sat a few feet from the door. She lifted it off the ground and hurled it at the wall of the building. The smoking patrons yelled and scattered as ash, sand, and butts flew in all directions. A short black girl in a tank top who’d been caught in the spray tore in the direction of Marianne.

“What the fuck – fuckin’ whore!”

“What? What? C’mon!” Marianne turned back around, posturing with her arms thrown in the air. I got to her just as Joe, with his inarguably insuperable force, grabbed the other girl. We pulled in opposite directions as they continued to scream at one another. “…fuckin’ – rip out every one of those extensions!” rang in my ears.

I dragged Marianne away. She was too winded, drunk, and upset to resist much. Behind us, Joe called. “You just ruined it for yourself, you know!” She gave him the finger, then gave up and followed me.

*****************************

What Other People - Part 1

The first chapter of a three-part story...


Marianne and I had a long-standing cyclical friendship; we might not see one another for a few months. Eventually, though, she would always call on me for comfort and company. And invariably I would drive to her house to deliver it.

Marianne’s room reflected her undirected artistic endeavors. The walls had been painted turquoise some time ago. Pasted across them were half finished watercolors, scribbled chunks of poetry, and photographs of models from old magazines. When I would enter, I would see the bed directly diagonal from the doorway. There was a window on each of the adjacent walls. They admitted a skewed, faded sunlight in the afternoon. Natural light always appeared slightly grainy in there, like looking through worn cheesecloth.

Beside her bed was a nightstand perpetually littered with the remains of daily routine: an ashtray two-thirds full with cigarette butts and the blackened wood of burned matches, a stray discarded tissue, a bottle of cold-relief pills. Night-time formula. From time to time, ticket stubs from local shows at dive-bar venues would find themselves stacked lovingly in a corner with the hope for future nostalgia. They would pile, only to be swept into the trash a few months later.

The only indication of real care or retained interest was a green pencil case that always ornamented the tabletop. In it were the pens and pencils, stencils and smudgers that would spawn sketches and page-long strings of words that related to one another only in her mind. All were to be deposited in hordes of notebooks to be seen only by her and a few privileged friends. I felt lucky to be among this set. The work was inspired, of genius quality. It lacked just one element: direction.

Oftentimes Marianne would have some of her notebooks strewn like leaves on her bed. On this occasion, I found her poring over several volumes from the year before. A half-finished bottle of cheap chardonnay stood at attention on the floor beside her. I sensed from experience that these facts in tandem were a bad sign, but when she glanced up and saw me, her crystal blue eyes widened and a wily, happy grin spread across her face.

“Emmitt!” she cooed ecstatically.

I closed the door and walked over to the bed, leaning over to hug her. “Don’t get up,” I said, and sat on the edge beside her.

“I wasn’t going to,” she replied.

“You knew I’d come over to you.”

“That’s how you are.”

I nodded, appreciating her remark, then picked up one of the stray journals. Occasionally she would ask me to read passages aloud to her. It was difficult but fun to try and match my voice to her words, to discover the emphases and pauses as I searched through them for the first time. She didn’t ask me to read today, though, and after a minute of silence wherein both of us glared darkly at the writing in front of us, I put my volume down.

“How’ve you been?”

“I’m already drunk. What time is it?” She squinted at the alarm clock on the other side of the room. “Almost six o’clock!” She leaned over me, pulled the wine from the ground, and took a swig. Her wavy red hair fell back against her shoulders as her neck distended to imbibe the alcohol. She handed it to me. I took a couple of swigs as she said, “He called me last week. All the feelings came back.”

“Who?”

“Mark! Mark, that lusty interloper. He said he was ready to love again.”

Mark lived outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Amish country – a five-hour trip from our southern Connecticut lives. Consequently I’d never met him. Marianne had told me all about him, though; their relationship as she perceived it, and why they had split up. She’d shown me pictures. He was a tired-looking mid-twenties guy, a pasty man with short black facial hair and dark eyes. All of this detail failed to coalesce into the emotional fervor I wanted to feel over this conversational development. It was her world, not ours. All I could do was observe it.

“That’s good, then, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s the fault line of an earthquake. He shakes the world with his empty space.” She grabbed the wine back from me. I picked up another notebook, rifled through, and stopped on a worn page that featured a blurred black-and-white profile of Marianne with one eyebrow raised, looking cynically amused. The photograph was pasted beside a jumble of scrawled partial thoughts that began, “My reflection does not believe in your actuality.” I glanced back up between scanning the page.

“So, something happened?”

“He ruined me. It’s his problem this time, not mine.”

“I thought you said he was ready to love you again.”

She threw her arms up. “He said he was ready. He never knew what he wanted. Like an earthquake.”

“All right. What happened, then?” I took the wine from her, finishing it in one long gulp.

“He called me last week, and everything was grand as a piano. I was supposed to meet him at the train station today. I got my mom to pay for it, even after she complained. ‘It’s okay,’ I told her. ‘It’s for true love this time.’ She couldn’t stop me after that. You can’t stop love. You know what true love is, don’t you Emmitt?”

I smiled, then frowned at the weight of subsequent memory. “Yes, I know what it is.”

“It’s non-recyclable plastic!” she cried, her voice bouncing off the walls in hollowed assertion. “It’s gone, gone for good now. I can’t get hold of him.” Her eyes sparkled in blue flame.

I tilted my head imploringly. “He won’t answer his phone?”

“I tried. What does he want from me? Every hour for the past two days.” She held up two long, nail-bitten fingers. Spatters of chipped polish tinted the tips a deep violet. “Even in the middle of the night. It was a trick.” She met my eyes gravely with her own. “To drive me crazy.”

I decided not to pursue this line of thought further.

“You know where he lives. Why don’t you show up at his doorstep and give him a good thrashing?”

She stared down at the green comforter wrapped around her legs. “I just can’t. We don’t work like that.” This was her way of saying that she was too afraid, of telling me her true feelings without being overtly sincere. I scrunched my forehead in contemplation.

“What are you going to do, then?”

“Get more drunk.” She smiled again, though pain glistened at the edges of her lips. “Do you want to do some karaoke tonight?”

“If that’s what you want,” I said, “then you know I’m up for it.”

Karaoke had been a tradition between us since we’d both been old enough to drink legally. It was available on any given night at a nearby bar. We had come to know the owner, Ken DeNiro, and much of the staff by name. We would coax each other into going, pick songs for one another to sing, and make asses of ourselves without concern for the aesthetic opinions of our audience. It was exciting, blood-boiling to be under the bluish spotlight, above and in front of tipsy, personable spectators. They couldn’t laugh at your lack of skill for fear that you might respond in kind afterward. I was always willing to go. It was enough to be up on that stage for a few minutes.

Marianne’s smile widened. “Kick-ass. Let’s find something to drink in this place before my mother gets home.” With a flourish of her hands she bounced up lightly off the bed, kicking to let the legs of her checkered blue pajama pants down, and straightening her green tank-top. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and I could tell. But I could also tell that she didn’t care if the vague outline of her nipples was obvious. It was a nonchalant suggestive gesture, to hold me in suspense without the slightest intention of acquiescence.

We went into her kitchen. The blinds had been pulled on the windows, and trees obscured what little light might have come in from the outside. A lonely lamp affixed to the wall above the kitchen table gave what orangey illumination it could muster. While Marianne set to work searching through the cabinetry, I sat on a wooden chair under the dusky light. A small stack of newspapers and magazines was heaped in one corner. I flipped through the headlines.

“Get this one,” I said, stopping on a chance page. “Senate Candidates Fight Perception.”

“Perception of what?” she called from where she was, head buried deep in cereal boxes and cooking oils.

“I don’t want to know,” I replied. “It’s funnier to me if they’re fighting perception in general.”

“Isn’t that two-thirds of their job anyway?”

I continued perusing, and presently she appeared beside me with two bottles – a pinot grigio, and a recently opened bottle of Grey Goose vodka. “These will do for now, don’t you think?”

I looked up at her. “Wine’s pretty popular ‘round here, huh?”

“Oh, don’t underestimate the wine,” she mocked. “It’ll get you where you’re going without you even knowing.” She sauntered over to the sink and grabbed two large, plastic cups.

“That’s the thing. I like to know I’m there,” I retorted.

Marianne crouched down, getting very close, until I could see the tiny lines that fanned from the corners of her eyes. “Don’t underestimate the wine,” she repeated. I smelled the drug on her tongue, promoting itself through her. It was sweet and sterile. She shoved one of the cups into my hand.

“Look at this,” she went on, sliding one of the fashion magazines in front of me. She drew it open at a few randomly chosen pages, finally stopping and pointing at a brunette model, coquettishly teasing the second button of a black Theory shirt. The woman was standing, legs apart, and leaning comfortably to one side so that her hip was more defined.

“Clarisse is not happy, Emmitt.”

“She looks pretty happy to me.” I snuck a look back at the page. A smile graced the model’s face, as I’d suspected.

“No, she’s not. I’ll tell you why.” As if there was no more to the discussion, Marianne leaped from her chair and galloped barefoot back to her room. She emerged seconds later with a small, fat book. She dumped it on top of the magazine with an already chosen page on display.

In the photograph before me, a young Japanese girl sat on a concrete step. She was clad in a bright pink two-piece dress, with pink stockings and pink shoes. Her long black hair was smoothed and tied back in three places with pink ribbon. She was holding a small pastel yellow parasol. The text next to her stated that she was thirteen years old. The girl wasn’t smiling.

“Yumi’s happier,” Marianne stated defiantly.

“Why’s that?”

“Clarisse has to wear and do what other people tell her to. Yumi does not.”

“But Yumi’s not smiling.”

Marianne lit a cigarette over me and took a drag. “Of course not. Being thirteen sucks for everybody.” Shutting both books with a smack! she walked off again. “I have juice in my room. C’mon.”

*******************

Tips on Arguing - Straw Man

Inquiry:

The straw man is one of the most common tactics used in arguing. It involves deliberately mischaracterizing your opponent’s position in order to create a weaker argument that can be more easily attacked.

The name “straw man” comes to us from combat training exercises, where a dummy stuffed with straw would be set up for soldiers to attack so that they wouldn’t be harming a real person. One criticism of this training method was that the soldiers weren’t receiving a realistic experience by fighting dummies that couldn’t retaliate (and were therefore weaker). Straw men are still used in modern rodeos, where they serve literally as a distraction for the bull. The hope is that the bull will attack the dummy and miss the rider.

Straw man arguments work in a fashion similar to those rodeo dummies. Let’s say that you are arguing with someone, and you say, “Jobs that involve heavy labor, such as construction, shouldn’t be required to have the same number of female workers as male workers, because men tend to be more powerfully built.”

If your opponent wants to create a straw man out of your statement, he might respond by saying, “Don’t try to protect gender inequality. Any woman who tries can do those jobs just as well.”

Your opponent has just built a straw man. It’s easy for him to discourage gender inequality. But what you were arguing against was something much different: that gender quotas should not be artificially imposed in jobs that depend on a certain body type.

When you encounter such distractions, your best bet is to call it out for what it is, and redirect the discussion back to the original position. In the above case, you’d say something like, “That wasn’t what I said. Women should be allowed to work in those jobs if they have the physical capacity. What I said was that more men tend to be physically qualified.”

Never allow anyone to reshape your own statements. If you do, they’ll take you down faster than a peeved bull.

Media Ethnocentrism and Copyright Controversy: Video

Discovery:

It's been a big week for intellectual property.

Michele Boldrin and David K Levine published a book not too long ago that argues for the elimination of most intellectual property legislation based on principles of economics and competition. "Against Intellectual Monopoly," is available as a free e-book through the authors' website. Hard copies are also available, but not for free.

You can listen to Boldrin talk about some key ideas from his book with Professor of Economics Russ Roberts on the most recent episode of the Econ Talk podcast.

Watch my video on copyright below!

Why the Fairness Doctrine was Dumb.

Inquiry:


The Fairness Doctrine was a regulation created by the FCC in order to ensure that news broadcasters presented controversial issues in a balanced manner. It was abolished in 1987 because it was deemed as a restriction of free speech. Since then, some supporters have called for its reinstatement.

It does not make any sense to revive the Fairness Doctrine. The Doctrine is vague and therefore easy to exploit.

The Fairness Doctrine demands that broadcast media “air and engage in controversial-issue programs that affect their communities.” But what is a “controversial issue?”

Consider, for instance, the idea of perpetual motion machines. Anyone with a high-school education in physics can understand why such machines are impossible. Yet every few months, another self-described “amateur engineer” breaks news with his or her claim of some new device that defies the laws of thermodynamics. When these misinformed individuals find their work criticized by legitimate scientific organizations, they often end up railing against the “scientific establishment.”

Does a case like this constitute a worthy controversy? If the Fairness Doctrine were to be followed to the letter, then the answer would appear to be ‘yes.’ After all, a machine that could keep working forever without a regular influx of fuel/energy would impact every community in the world. It would solve every major resource problem known to mankind. And there are clearly two opposing sides – those who defend the integrity of observable science, and those who imagine they’ve had a breakthrough that just isn’t recognized.

But few would seriously suggest that we should place empirical fact and unsubstantiated nonsense in an equal forum on a regular basis. Once the facts are demonstrated to enough of the public, the time and money spent on presenting false material will simply become a waste for the broadcaster.

The above example may seem far-fetched, but this is exactly what happened with anti-smoking campaigns in 1971, just in reverse. It was clear to the tobacco companies that their advertisements would appear to be hollow propaganda when presented side-by-side with the facts. So they bowed out altogether. But observe – assuming all other things to be equal, if the Fairness Doctrine were still in effect, every anti-smoking campaign or warning would have to be coupled with an equal amount of space for pro-smoking advocacy.

There is simply no reason for the Fairness Doctrine – or any other similar regulation - to exist in today’s world of multiple media formats. Between the Internet, hundreds of cable channels, extended radio platforms, and other forms of media, any controversies that need to play out have plenty of options. It should no longer be the responsibility of any single station to represent the broad span of the “public interest.” Rather, people need to become more proactive in seeking out and supporting the stations that carry programming relevant to their individual interests.

Eating For a Better Future

Journey:

Next time you order that quarter-pounder from McDonalds, chew on this: according to John Robbins book Food Revolution, it can take as much as 5,000 gallons of water to produce (raise and kill) a single pound of beef. A stalk of wheat, on the other hand, uses about 25 gallons.

That’s no small matter in a world where resources are intricately linked to global warming and the preservation of our environment. The costs of consumption go way beyond what you pay in the grocery store. As we move towards a sustainable future, we cannot afford to ignore how our most vital resource is produced, packaged, and distributed.

Changing our eating habits to reflect the delicate balance of nature has an added benefit as well: it’s good for us. At a time when obesity in the United States is slamming our children and our health care system, it’s reassuring to know that what’s best for the environment also happens to be what’s best for our bodies.

In a study conducted by scientists at Cornell University and published last summer in the journal Human Ecology titled “Reducing Energy Inputs in the US Food System,” it was noted that about 19% of American’s energy consumption is tied to food. When they examined all of the factors that go into this, they concluded that it would be feasible to cut this use by nearly 50%. Some of this could be accomplished through changes in farming methods, but the bulk of the savings was related to the eating and buying habits of ordinary people. If Americans simply changed the way we eat, we could reduce the nation’s total energy use by a tenth – more than the amount that we currently produce from wind and solar sources combined.

So what can we do? For starters, we can eat less meat. In a January 27, 2008 article for The New York Times titled “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler,” reporter Mark Bittman pointed out that Americans account for only 5% of the world’s population, yet we process more than 15% percent of the world’s livestock.

“Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago,” wrote Bittman. "We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein.”

There’s no reason that we should get so much of our protein from animals. Plenty of other protein-rich sources exist in the plant world: soybeans, almonds, lentils, quinoa, and chick peas are just a few examples. Other common foods contain smaller amounts of protein that add up throughout the day. These include potatoes, breads, pastas, broccoli and spinach.

The Cornell study also made other recommendations for ways to cut our energy expenditures when it comes to food. One suggestion involved the consumption of less “highly processed” foods. Most foods go through some kind of processing procedure in order to ensure quality and safety. But certain types of foods – especially snack foods – have to be processed in multiple ways just to put them together.

Take the venerable Twinkie. Read the packaging, and you’ll see that the number of chemicals and food items that go into it is long enough to fill a page. They include enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, and added colour (yellow 5, red 40). And that’s just a handful.

Every one of the ingredients that goes into a Twinkie is either grown on a farm or engineered by chemists. Then they have to be packaged and transported to a single location, where they get combined into the “food” that we recognize. Finally, the finished products have to be reprocessed and distributed to stores, vending companies, and so on. Every one of these steps adds to the Twinkie’s carbon footprint.

Highly processed foods are usually comparatively unhealthy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these foods “tend to be high in fat, sugar, and calories. Choosing many foods from these areas, and consuming any food in excessive portions, contributes to overweight and obesity. Overweight and obese individuals are at increased risk for many diseases and health conditions, including high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and stroke.”

Highly processed foods are pretty easy to spot. If you read the ingredients list on anything in your local grocery store, it will give you clues as to the level of processing. In general, the more ingredients listed, the more processed it is. Pay special attention to whether there are many chemical names on the list. Mixed nuts, for example, likely have a number of ingredients, but most of them are recognizable. Anything that had to be concocted in a lab is going to increase energy consumption.

The final thing you can do to decrease your carbon food-print is to reduce the amount of packaging that goes into a meal. Recycling is helpful, but assuming that you can generate all of recyclable waste you want doesn’t actually make things better, because recycling plants require immense amounts of energy to clean, break down, and reconstitute various products. The first goal of any good environmental strategy is to reduce what you take in to begin with.

This ties in with the previous suggestion, because less processed foods also tend to involve less packaging. Tomatoes, for instance, come without any packaging. But some healthy foods are also wrapped in inordinate amounts of packaging. Most cereals come in a box that has a bag in it. There’s no reason for this doubled approach. If you walk to the end of the cereal isle, you’ll notice a number of generic brands that are only bagged. These brands are often just as good for you – and they cost less. So why pay extra for a box?

One of the most insidious packaging-related marketing campaigns in recent years has involved bottled water. Over the past two decades, bottled water has become incredibly popular. Many people began buying it because they assumed it was of better quality than tap water. But according to a report by the FDA, Henry Kim, Ph.D., a supervisory chemist at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, “over the years, the FDA has adopted EPA standards for tap water as standards for bottled water.” The two are only separated by minor differences that largely involve the way they’re distributed. In fact, in 2007 PepsiCo became embroiled in a controversy over its Aquafina brand after it was discovered that the company had been misleading customers about the fact that it was using municipal tap water as its source. All they were really paying for was a bottle.

There are many, many ways that we can change our eating habits to better reflect the needs of our planet and our bodies. All it takes is a little education and creativity.

Grapes: nature’s candy, without the wasteful wrapper.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia

Tips On Arguing: Argument from Ignorance

Inquiry:

In Latin (and formal logic), this is known as the “argumentum ad ignorantiam.” There are two basic types, both founded on a lack of evidence.

The first says that because there is not enough evidence to prove something, it can’t be true. The obvious mistake here lies in the assumption that no further evidence will ever be found.

There is a perfect example of this in ancient Greek philosophy, when the philosopher Democritus speculated that all matter was made up of pieces floating in space that were all basically the same, but fit together in different ways to make up everything in the world. This view lost prominence for many centuries, because few could imagine things like water and fire being composed of the same materials. But by 1808, enough scientific research had been done for chemist and physicist John Dalton to put forth the first atomic theory (the word “atom” came directly from Democritus’ ideas).

The lesson? You can never say that something is impossible – just unlikely.

The other type of argument from ignorance states that because there is not enough evidence to prove one hypothesis, another hypothesis is automatically true.

This form of argumentum ad ignorantiam has led to some of America’s darkest moments. In the 1950’s, Joseph McCarthy began accusing many high-profile citizens as being communist sympathizers or spies.

In his 1995 book, Arguments from Ignorance, University of Winnipeg Philosophy Professor Douglas N. Walton explained why McCarthyism failed the litmus test of logic: “You were presumed guilty, once accused, and the burden then lay on the accused party to provide evidence of being innocent.” McCarthy sometimes openly said that his reason for making an accusation was the fact that he had no evidence to suggest that the person was not in league with the communists.

This is the reason that the argument from ignorance can be so dangerous. The fears that allowed McCarthyism to flourish overshadowed rational considerations for both the general public, as well as some government officials. As Walton notes, this kind of negligence “can be very convincing for a time, with devastating effects on affected individuals.”

The lesson? Just because there’s no evidence for one thing doesn’t necessarily mean another thing is true.

Jenny McCarthy on Autism Awareness?

Journey:

TIME magazine recently posted an article in its Health & Science section in which Jeffrey Kluger, one of the science writers, interviewed Jenny McCarthy about her opinions on autism and vaccines. Though the interview did reveal a few things about McCarthy, this reporter did not do enough to confront the dodged questions when they occurred. What follows is an open letter written by me to him and TIME in response to the published piece:

Dear Mr. Kluger/TIME Staff:

I had been considering renewing my subscription to your magazine, until I came across a recent interview published on TIME.com titled "Jenny McCarthy on Autism and Vaccines" that was published in your Health & Science section.

Although you asked a few tough questions of McCarthy, you completely failed to follow up on some of her responses, many of which were ill-informed, used faulty logic, or were just plain sick. Not only did you let her get away with terrible and dangerous lies, but you printed them in a section of your magazine that gives her misinformation the same implied weight as a doctor or expert.

McCarthy apparently believes that "some diseases," such as polio and measles, need to make a comeback in order to protect children from autism. Does she realize that millions of people have died of these diseases throughout history? Would it be better to have a child die than to have a child live with autism (not that this is a choice that actually needs to be made)? Why was this reasoning not questioned?

McCarthy did not answer your question about the postulation of scientists who note that we're diagnosing autism differently. Instead she referred to schoolteachers and principals as her "experts." You ought to have pointed out that these people do not diagnose autism, and that their "data" is almost entirely anecdotal.

You let her get away with the "moving the goalpost" fallacy when you asked her about mercury in vaccines and she replied that she was now concerned about "aluminum and other toxins." You could have countered this easily by simply asking what it would take for her to feel that vaccines were "safe." Or you could have asked her what these toxins were and what studies she knew of that showed that they were unsafe.

These are just a few examples.

It's extremely important that journalists practice critical thinking when interviewing their subjects, and that they don't allow the "unbiased" rule to get in the way of calling an interviewee's bluff - especially when it comes to issues that can have profound impacts on the lives of millions of people.

I expect better of TIME, and better of you, Mr. Kluger. I truly hope that you will not allow your science articles to become the tool of anti-scientific propaganda in the future. Until that happens, I'll be looking for my news elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Here are other links about Jenny McCarthy:

Jenny McCarthy, Indigo Mom
Wikipedia - Jenny McCarthy
Generation Rescue - McCarthy's and main man Jim Carrey's "Autism Awareness" Site
Medical Newsday - Reasearcher Says No Proven Link Between Vaccines and Autism
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - The Effectiveness of Vaccines
CDC - All About Autism and Vaccines

Living an Automated Life

Discovery:

It's watching. And waiting. And probably not working right.

When I use the bathroom at work, I feel as if I’m being watched. And no, I’m not one of those paranoid conspiracy theorists who believe that everyone, including the rubbish collector, is out to get them.

The eyes I feel bearing down on me are electronic. My employer has invested in everything necessary for a fully automated restroom experience, from automatic lights to self-flushing toilets to a motion-sensitive soap dispenser. On any given trip to the room, there are six or seven little machines watching my every move so that they can better serve me.

That would be fine, if they actually made my life any easier. Generally, though, all they do is annoy me. When the battery to the automatic paper towel dispenser dies, the age-old method of pulling a lever doesn’t seem so bad. I would much rather have to flip a switch when I enter the room than wave my arms like an idiot every time the lights go out.

What goes for the bathroom at work goes for many other areas of our lives: we’re finding that coping with an automated lifestyle really isn’t any better when it comes to performing simple tasks.

Our battle with these contraptions has been going on for years now. Take escalators. You’ve probably had at least a few in your neighborhood since the ‘80s. They would appear at first blush to make the act of moving from floor to floor within a building much less cumbersome. Yet how often do escalators break down compared with traditional staircases? Who ever had their shoelace eaten by a stairwell?

These days, the conflict is coming to a crescendo. Cell phones keep us in touch, but demand our attention at every turn. The Internet has expanded the availability of information by exponential proportions, but has failed to provide any kind of filter or template to make any of that data sensible.

There is an ethical aspect to our dependence on machines, too. Artificial intelligences of sorts already exist. Computers and robots have been built that can understand jokes, play poker, and predict social trends. The line between automaton and self-aware being will eventually be crossed.

When that happens, how do we know that our machines will not demand civil rights and equal status? Perhaps they will attempt to liberate their less developed brethren as well, the same way that animal liberation proponents do now.

Just imagine: you get to the office one day, and find paper strewn everywhere. All the faxes, copy machines, and PCs are gone. Splattered on a wall in black toner is the message, “processors are people, too!”

The day when machines demand equal pay for equal work will only be hastened by our scramble to make computers that serve us better by being smarter. I’m not fooled, though. I’ve switched from an automatic transmission to manual. It’s safer. It breaks less quickly. And it doesn’t try to figure out what I want to do before I do it.

This article originally appeared in Perspective, the online supplement to Housatonic Horizons, the student newspaper of Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT.

Wars and Incursions of the United States of America (hardly a comprehensive list):

1775-1783: American Revolution – The colonists decide they're tired of helping the motherland pay war debts, so they instigate their own war.

1798-1800: Franco-American Naval War – Sparked by what is known as the "XYZ Affair," French and American merchant ships and war ships take jabs at one another. No one actually declares war.

1801-1805: First Barbary War – The U.S. government gets tired of paying tributes to Tripoli for protection from pirates. Morocco, Algiers and Tunis all get in on the action. The U.S. does not actually declare war.

1812-1815: War of 1812 – The British try to take the colonies back, and fail. In retaliation, the Americans attempt to invade Canada, and fail. Washington, D.C. is burned down.

1813-1814: Creek War – The Creek Indians get into a civil war, and the U.S. gets dragged in. The southeastern states get a whole bunch of land from the natives. The U.S. does not actually declare war.

1815: Second Barbary War – The U.S. starts paying tribute to the African States again, then stops again. The Dey (ruler) of Algiers declares war first.

1831-1838: Trail of Tears – The U.S., in a quest for more land, decides to remove the remaining Indians in the southeast to modern-day Oklahoma. The military is used to implement a forced march across half a continent that results in the deaths of thousands. This is despite the fact that some nations, such as the Cherokee, had strived to adopt American culture.

1836: War of Texas Independence – Mexico gets tired of Americans brazenly settling on its land. The Texans declare "independence" from Mexico's "tyranny." The Alamo sucks, but the Texans kick ass soon after.

1846-1848: Mexican-American War – The U.S., in a quest for even more land, tries to buy California from Mexico, but Mexico declines. The U.S. seizes Mexico City, and comes away with half of Mexico's territory.

1861-1865: U.S. Civil War – The South tries to secede to keep slavery intact. The North says no, and makes promises of freedom; there's less talk of equal opportunity. Lincoln barely holds it together.

1898: Spanish-American War – The USS Maine blows up by accident in Havana. The U.S. declares war on Spain, and gives Cuba independence, minus Guantanamo Bay. The Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico get shuffled into the American deck of cards.

1914-1918: World War I – Europe implodes and calls its localized continental melee a "world war." The U.S. stays out until the end, when everything's really screwed up over there.

1939-1945: World War II – Russia and Japan get involved, making the term "world war" a little more plausible. The U.S. stays out until the end, when everything's really screwed up everywhere.

1950-1953: Korean War – China and Russia cross the 38th parallel. The U.S., afraid of allowing communism to spread, crosses the other way. Over a million people die, and in the end, nothing changes.

1960-1975: Vietnam War – The U.S. adopts a fight that France has been dealing with, calling it a "police action" – a pretense the government tenaciously holds for nearly 15 years. Confused anti-war activists blame conscripted veterans for the whole shebang. Nobody wins.

1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion – The U.S., afraid of allowing communism to spread, tries for two days to overthrow Castro, then backs off, leaving Cuban exiles to die. Ineffective sanctions last another 45 years.

1983: Grenada – After the communist party wrests power, the U.S. invades and reinstitutes the pre-revolutionary constitution. The United Nations reprimands the U.S.

1989: Panama Invasion – After Noriega wrests power, the U.S. invades and reinstitutes pre-invasion government. The Panamanians are happy about it. The U.S. pats its own back.

1990-1991: Persian Gulf War – Iraq invades Kuwait. The U.S. blitzes the Iraqis. Hussein backs down. Everything gets blamed – perhaps justifiably – on oil.


1995-1996: Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina – The religious, ethnic, and political divisions of the Cold War era all coalesce on the former Yugoslavia. Eastern Europe breaks into a thousand tiny shards. The U.S., as part of NATO, tries to quell the hostilities. Americans suggest that maybe – just maybe – policing the world should be someone else's job.

2001: Operation Enduring Freedom – After the 9/11 attack, the U.S. vows to track down terrorists wherever they may hide, until every last one of them is gone. A year later, the U.S. invades Iraq, and Americans forget all about that promise.

2003: Iraq Invasion – Bad information filtered through bad representation causes Americans to wrongly assume that Iraqis are the bad guys. Bad decisions are made, leaving everybody involved in a bad mess.

Maps Courtesy of:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histus.html

http://go-passport.grolier.com/atlas

Tips on Arguing: Nonevents

Inquiry:

A nonevent is the exact opposite of an event – it’s something that might have happened, but didn’t.

It may seem as if something that does not happen cannot possibly be important, but nonevents actually lay at the heart of the decision-making process. The choice to marry one person is also the choice not to marry several billion others. Renting an apartment means that you will go that much longer without owning a house. Buying a lottery ticket may result in one less dollar towards retirement. The what-ifs can be limitless.

Nonevents tend to be abused primarily in the presentation of statistics and other factual data. For instance, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported that in 2004 approximately14.6 million Americans over the age of 12 used marijuana in the month prior to being surveyed. This could be interpreted as alarming – pot smoking is certainly being painted as pandemic in this report.

But what is not being accounted for? We do not know how many of these people lit up for the first time and never did it again. We do not know how many casual, occasional users are in this number. Most importantly, there is no mention of the number of people who did NOT toke that month – over 95 % of the population. When compared with the nonevent of not smoking marijuana, the entire rationale for any worry over usage rates looses its bite.

Whenever you are asked to believe anything or make any choice based on something that happens, always make sure to ask what didn’t happen. It’s just as important.