The trouble with everything

Can you spot what the spellchecker changed?

2011-09-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

Cellists are not a health threat.

Cellists are becoming an accepted part of the urban and rural landscape in Canada. Any major city is likely to have close to a hundred cellists, each located to provide service to the immediately surrounding area.

While some cellists are on easily visible towers, many of the newer ones are virtually invisible. Today, you might find a cellist unobtrusively perched on the cornice of a tall building, inside a bell tower or even on a church steeple. Tomorrow, innovative designs already on the drawing board will allow cellists to look like Palm trees, Douglas Firs or other vegetation which blends naturally into the environment.

Cellists are not dangerous. There has never been a recorded instance of anyone being damaged in any way by proximity to a cellist. In fact, a cellist can actually add to public safety in an area by providing good personal and emergency communications.

It has been suggested that cellists can cause a hazard when they are hit by lightning. The fact is that cellists are designed to be hit by lightning - so they actually protect nearby flammable structures. Modern cellists can easily withstand hundreds of lightning strikes and dissipate the electricity harmlessly into the ground.

COMPANYNAME takes all necessary precautions to prevent children climbing on our cellists. Sturdy fences surround cage-tower structures, and the smooth sides of the newer monopole designs make the cellists completely inaccessible to children or anyone else who is not properly equipped.

While a cellist on a tower may not be the most beautiful sight in the world, we do try to locate such structures in treed areas. Evidence from the real estate industry show that property values have not been hurt by the presence of a cellist nearby.

Unlike TV and commercial radio transmitters, cellists do not rely on blanketing an area with maximum power. Instead, they maintain a very low power level so as not to disturb other cellists in the area. This is particularly important in urban areas where cellists are usually very close together.

A re-found poetical parody

2010-07-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

What is this @#!**$% Life

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to hear Slim swear.
No time to hear a “damn!”, or worse,
Some triple-X, blasphemous curse.
No time to chasten: “Fuck, shit, piss!”
In earshot of some comely miss.
No time to hear, when Mormon’s call,
Slim “Jesus H. Christ!”-ing up the wall.
No time for nuns who turn, askance,
At Slim’s crude words and baleful glance.
No time to hear, in dark of night:
“Who turned off this fuckin’ light?”
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to hear Slim swear.

—W.H. “Fuckin’” Davies
(Who, of course, wrote this for Gordon
“Westering” Walls, who lived below
Slim, a man charitably described as
an obstreperous old coot.)

Your Money for Your Life

2010-06-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Fuck the G8, the G10, the IMF, Wall Street and Investment Bankers Everywhere

What do you see as some of the more valuable aspects of urbanization and some of the more dangerous?

Well, the "valuable" aspect, or at least the interesting one, is that bigger towns are getting much more "urban-informatic" lately.There's a lot of innovation in the urban fabric these days. Cities also seem to have political energy in an era when nations are getting weaker every day. For instance, the UK is a creaking financial wreck while Boris Johnson's London is a freak scene.

The obviously dangerous aspect of modern cities is urban organized crime, narcoterror, low-intensity warfare, war in urban terrain, favela shoot-'em-ups, whatever faddish name the trouble has this year. Baghdad, Mogadishu, Grozny.

But I'd also like to point out that large financial centers in certain cities around the planet are certainly going to kill millions of us by destroying our social safety networks in the name of their imaginary financial efficiency. You're a thousand times more likely to die because of what some urban banker did in 2008 than from what some Afghan-based terrorist did in 2001.

Financiers live in small, panicky urban cloisters, severely detached from the rest of mankind. They are living today in rich-guy ghetto cults. They are truly dangerous to our well-being, and they are getting worse and more extremist, not better and more reasonable. You're not gonna realize this havoc till you see your elderly Mom coughing in an emergency ward, but she's going there for a reason.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/14/bruce-sterling-inter-2.html#more

From a boingboing.net interview with Bruce Sterling

Fuck You VanOC

2008-09-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

With glowing hearts...

The petty little dickheads running Vancouver's olympic organizing committee have done it again. They've adopted a phrase from Canada's national anthem... and copyrighted it!

Now, as far as I ever knew, you couldn't copyright ordinary words and phrases. But I haven't been particularly vigilant and it may be that Canada has gone down the same crazy road they have in the United States of Insanity in allowing you to copyright almost anything -- basmati rice, for instance (though that copyright was revoked when rice growers in India, among others, protested loud and long). Perhaps it was my threat to copyright long-chain hydrocarbons that gave them pause.

VanOC also copyrighted words such as Gold, Silver, Bronze, Winter, Olympics and so on, then tried to hammer businesses that used those terms in their names -- most notably Olympic Pizza, which has held the name for a great many more years than Premier Campbell has been sober. They failed, thank goodness.

Although I, for some odd reason, enjoy long track speed skating, I don't really like the Winter Olympics. They seem elitist to me.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure: If you want, you can dismiss this rant as sour grapes. I live in the False Creek area, near the Cambie St. Bridge, where they've been disrupting our lives for 2+ years building the Olympic Village (you can buy one of condos if you have a elite million bucks or so) and the subway to the airport (which was going to be almost all drilled underground until the contractors found more profit in a messy, disruptive cut and cover scheme).

Canada Line "Cut and Cover" - Photo by Jean Sorensen, a Vancouver freelance writer

So here's to you, you chickenshit cronies of the preem:

With glowing hearts...
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With glowing hearts...
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With glowing hearts...
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With glowing hearts...
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With glowing hearts...
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Oh yeah... anybody want to diss the Winter Olympics? I have the domain 2010WinterGold.com for that purpose (not active yet).

Insane McCain Refrain

2008-08-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

Scarecrow McCain Campaign Song

I could while away the hours
contemplatin' all my powers --
perhaps I should explain --
I'm on a presidential mission and
I'm hoping and I'm wishin'
"If I only had a brain."

Oh, I endured a lot to get here --
prison, torture and my pet fear --
let me explain again:
On my presidential expediton
I did too much ass kissin'
and I pulled a Cheney train

So if you have got the mercy
to overlook my vicey versey
(and Iraq's just one I'll name)
Let's get on with the killin'
And the Halliburton billin'
with four more years of the same.

More cures for everything

2008-01-29T10:35:00.001-08:00

The cure for everything!

2008-01-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

Interviews with dinosaurs

2007-09-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Walking with dinosaurs?
Spectacular but dangerous.
Talk with them them instead.

Interview with a Stegosaurus

Palaeontologist: You don’t have a reputation for being the brightest penny in the jar…

Stegosaurus: Huh?

Palaeontologist: You’re not a thinker. You’ve got a brain the size of a walnut.

Stegosaurus: Walnut? Is that good?

Palaeontologist: Let’s change the subject! You are one of the most recognizable of dinosaurs because of the two rows of alternating bony plates on your back and that tail full of long spikes.

Stegosaurus: Oh, yeah. It’s a hard world, ‘specially when Big Al, the Allosaurus, is around. You gotta be able to protect yourself. The smaller meat eaters are just a nuisance. I generally swat them one and keep on eating…. What’s alternating?

Palaeontologist: Tell me about your bony plates?

Stegosaurus: Well, the girls like them… or the guys… I’m not sure which I am, until I lay some eggs…or don’t. Ask that baby Stegosaurus that’s been following me. I think the plates also have something to do with heat.

Palaeontologist: You mean they radiate heat when you need to cool down and absorb heat when you need to warm up, especially first thing in the morning.

Stegosaurus: Sure. What you said.

Palaeontologist: Thanks for your time.

Interview with a Velociraptor

Paleontologist: Your leg bones and skull tell me you are a Velociraptor. Some see traces of fur or feathers pressed into the sandstone.

Velociraptor: So that’s what you call us: “Swift thief.” Fur would certainly come in handy on cold desert nights... feathers, too.

Paleontologist: These fossils tell even more about you: Your long, thin leg bones and jaw full of sharp teeth say you were a fast, fierce hunter. You could sprint at 40 kilometres an hour – faster than the world’s fastest man.

Velociraptor: Oh, I was fast! At full speed, I was like a hurricane. And when I joined my kin and hunted in a pack, no prey could escape us.

Paleontologist: Yes, we found the fossil remains of one of your kin with its 9 centimetre, scythe-like talon still embedded in the throat of a Protoceratops.

Velociraptor: They were tough to kill with that armoured crest, but tasty and fairly slow. Easy to catch. How did they both die?

Paleontologist: We think a sandstorm brought a dune crashing down on them, like a huge, breaking wave.

Velociraptor: Well, the edge of the desert was a fine place for hunting, but not without its dangers. Next time you’re there, imagine that I’m stalking you from the top of a dune!

Paleontologist: Yes, well…. We haven’t talked about your intelligence.

Velociraptor: Not to boast, but I was three times smarter than most other dinosaurs. In fact, I’m surprised to see we’ve been replaced by you, and that those dull crocodiles are still around after 200 million years.

Paleontologist: For all our brains, we may yet join you if we aren’t more careful about this planet.

Velociraptor: Yes, control the things you can and hope the things you can’t aren’t as catastrophic as the asteroids that wiped us out.

Paleontologist: Thank you.

Velociraptor: My pleasure…. See you in the desert!

Lethal Bosses

2007-05-21T15:21:00.001-07:00

Click, make bigger!

My Saviour can beat your Saviour... Nyah...nyah!

2007-05-20T23:04:00.001-07:00

Fast Food Factoid

2007-05-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

The truth about The Colonel, Dave
and that annoying Clown

The bottom line on the fast food industry is that...

Their bottom line is more important than your bottom line.

Frames of reference

2007-02-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

Trick Shots

2007-02-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

Fuck Homeland Security

2007-02-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

A dietician looks at anti-terrorism

If we took a few small steps, made a few small changes in the way we live, more of us would lead long, healthy, happy lives. Just remember this:

The average American is more at risk from bacon than from terrorists.

One night at the pool hall

2007-02-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

Yati-ati

2007-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

Who are these -atis?

Illuminati?
Literati?
Technorati?
Glitterati?
Bugati?

You tell me!

Technorati Profile

The Food Fair

2007-02-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

Maybe U R my Brian

“Any three with rice -- $6.99”

My kind of food. My kind of price. Steamed veg, crisp spring rolls and almond chicken, plus rice, $6.99. In another life now… and another place… but this has all the savour of those “handsome little cakes” under plastic domes in the supermarket.

“Handsome little cake…”

I take my usual place, even though the last person left it messy.

“Any three with rice -- $6.99 – bus your own table.”

Beneath a used napkin somebody has left me a message, carefully, lovingly, freshly inscribed into the table with a blue ballpoint:

BRIAN. Next to it, three interlocked hearts.

I dip into my fanny bag, smirking, remembering “fanny” is a rude word in England. I take out my own ballpoint. Red.

***I AM BRIAN*** I inscribe with equal care.

I love almond chicken. I’ll be back.

Yes, I love almond chicken. Beneath my note she has inscribed – in more haste:

Maybe U R My BRIAN!

Orange peel beef is also good.

i am brian

In red, lower case, modestly, coyly asserting my belongingness. Modest rubrics… I amuse myself.

YES! U R MY BRIAN!!!

Hello. R U Dale?

Yesterday I watched her writing to me. Giggling with her friends who call her Dale.

The cleaners have been busy, washing off the ink. But the impressions are still there to be carefully retraced in blue and red fine-point permanent marker.

OMG! How do U know my NAME?!

My fave name. I hoped.

Mmm. Beef and broccoli today. And almond chicken. And noodles. And rice. Soon I will pinch an inch.

WHO ARE U?

I stand behind her in the line. She likes MacDonald’s. I hate it. She smells like cinnamon. I hate that, too. From the next table I watch her write her question. Later I write my answer:

I am YOUR Brian. I like puppies and MacDonald’s.

There is no answer for two days. It is the weekend. I do not sleep or eat. I walk to the mountain. And up. And down. Waiting is hard work. It builds character. And appetite.

Now here it is: R U CUTE?

My G-Friends say so. I’m hungry.

It’s true. I am so hungry.

MEET ME AT MCD’S FOR BURGERS?

I am so hungry.

Not for burgers. I hunger for U

Two days and there is no answer.

And there is no answer.

FOR U. Hunger!

At last, an answer:

U SCARE ME U R NOT MY BRIAN BYE BRIAN

She looks frightened. Her friends gather close. “Why are you even writing? Dale! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

But she will be back. And I am hungry.

2006-12-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

A torus for a Taurus

I love doughnuts, or 'donuts' if you're a goddam lazy Yankee. I sometimes think my love of doughnuts means I should have been a cop. No matter...

I have eaten many doughnuts in my life, but two, in particular, stand out.

One was in a small square in East Berlin -- a yeast doughnut, light and fluffy as whipped cream and lightly dusted with sugar. Truly, Ich bin ein Berliner!

The second was a traditional, dunking style doughnut from Currah's, a little bakery in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. Nobody has ever made a better doughnut. Light, cohesive, flavourful... and irresistible when warm. They are better than any doughnut ever made by Tim Horton's. They are infinitely better than those worst-ever, sugar-lard frauds called Krispy Kremes!

Here's where the world's best traditional doughnuts are made:

http://www.shopsaskatchewan.com/MapleCreek/currah's-bakery.htm

Message in a bottle

2006-11-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

The end-of-year challenge from New Scientist Magazine was to imagine yourself an alien just arrived on Earth. You need to send a report home, but are limited to 160 characters (I assume this to mean characters and spaces). What do you say? My message:

#3 planet: Big place, much life, little intelligence. Land masses unstable. Air poor, most water salty or frozen. Note to self: tequila cocktails after dinner?

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

My billiards partner, Gordon, weighed in with this contribution:

The only digestible food (gaseous methane) you get in cubicles in a back room - if (and only if) a local happens to be there to leak some into the atmosphere.

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

Got a message to send back to the home galaxy? Publish it here. Remember, messages must be exactly 160 characters and spaces.

Fuck Fox News

2006-10-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

There used to be a website called "Fuckedcompany.com" -- it should be reworked as "Fuckedcountry.com" in honour of the current sad state of the USA.

Grasslands Survival Wisdom

2006-10-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Beware the Weetabixabeast, my son!
A motley herd of weetabixabeasts rolls lazily across a cultivated field. This omnivorous arch-enemy of the wheat farmer slowly, but relentlessly, devours everything in its path. Woe betide the hapless picnicker who falls asleep in an open field, unwary of the weetabixabeast's stealthy approach!

Weetabixabeasts begin life as chigger-sized clusters of cells hidden in the forest duff, making only occasional forays beyond the woody margins. By the fall, however, they are brazenly big and openly stalk the grasslands for carrion and slow-moving, prey.

Helplessly attracted to milk, weetabixabeasts are easily lured into cowbarns by canny farmers. In those confined spaces, the weetabixabeast is quickly corralled and slaughtered. Their processed carcasses are welcome feedstock for the breakfast food industry.

What to do with drunken sailors

2006-08-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

Do you believe in God, Canada

Norway's hands squeezed tighter around my throat.

On the ship we often called people by their country, instead of their names, even though it caused problems: There were six Norwegians in the crew – not counting the four officers; four Australians, too.

Shout “Hey Norway!” And several heads turned.

I was okay. Canada. The only one.

Sweden was also unique, as were Finn, Poland and Deutschland. The two Honduran mess men were “Spanish.” The lone Brit would only answer to “Liverpool.”

I had never been a sailor before, and I was only aboard because of mistaken identity, and a small debt.

Let me explain. In a dingy café in Halifax, with $5 in my pocket and just enough left in the bank to get back home to the West Coast, I ran into two friends who’d wandered out of my life three months earlier. They’d gone to work on freighters plying the sea lanes between Montreal, New York, and the Caribbean, for a summer of goofing off, boozing and sex with exotic women.

My friends had come ashore for a drink. One drink led to a binge and when they sobered up enough to realize where they were, their ship had sailed, leaving them stranded with no cash, no passports and only their driver's licenses, empty wallets and the clothes they went ashore in.

“No big deal,” said Yazz, as he told me their story (Yazz had started up this whole merchant seaman adventure the previous winter by talking non-stop about what a blast it would be, basking in the Caribbean sun). “They’ll drop our stuff off at the Norwegian Sailors Hostel in New York. All we have to do is get there.” They looked at me expectantly.

Turns out I had enough in the bank to buy the three of us passage on a Greek liner heading to New York, leaving just $8 when we got there.

At the Hostel, my two friends told the desk clerk their story and got their rooms. The clerk looked at me, saw my blonde hair and blue eyes and said “same story?” I shrugged, mumbled something, filled in the registration and got my key. So there we were in New York with almost zero cash, but at least we had beds to sleep in and a 24-hours-a-day Norwegian smorgasbord to stave off hunger. When we got desperate enough we would head to the hiring hall to find work on some Norsk ship or other.

If you were willing to walk a lot and ride the subway ("Still 10-cents, Mac," said the ticket-seller when asked the price), you could do a lot in New York without much money. I did just that, sucking in all the sights and sounds of the biggest city I’d ever been in. It was glorious. On the third day I got summoned to the desk to take a phone call. Uh-oh! The Norwegian Consulate.

“We have no record of you being on that ship. Are you a seaman?”

No. But I want to be.

“Well you owe us $40 for room and board. How will you pay it?”

I have no money. But if you help get me on a ship, you could take it from my pay.

The very next evening, having bypassed the chaos, favouritism and bureaucracy of the hiring hall, I lugged my duffel bag up the gangway to my new home, the MS Ariel, a 17,000 ton bulk carrier bound for… I didn’t know where.

Six weeks later, the Ariel was sitting in dry-dock in the little Japanese town of Kurashiki.

It turned out the Ariel was a ship for sailors with drinking problems. It was a dry ship; once every 30 days at sea you were permitted to buy just two bottles of beer. That wasn’t a problem for me, who preferred ice cream over beer. But by the time we reached Japan, it had been nearly a month, so these were thirsty sailors. As soon as they could they went to town and got roaring drunk. Blind drunk. So drunk I was surprised any of them had lived this long. Drunk enough to chase up the street on all fours barking like a dog at imaginary cats. Drunk enough to do the classic splits between a boat and the wharf. Kersplash! Drunk enough to tumble overboard from the taxi launch in pitch darkness, floundering drunkenly until the rest of us made the non-English-speaking water taxi driver understand what had happened, turn around, and miraculously find them before they sank into the shit-infested bay.

One sailor, an able-bodied seaman named Lars, didn’t join the shore parties of his full venner (Norwegian for drunken friends). On his first day he went ashore and came back an hour later with a case of cheap Japanese gin. He locked himself in his cabin and refused to come out.

“I’m a seaman. I only work at sea!” he proclaimed, rebuffing all entreaties to come out and do his shift of useless scraping and painting. There isn’t much in a merchant seaman’s work to keep the mind alive, so in a way, I couldn’t blame Lars for staging a one man strike.

On the second day in dry dock, one of the other Norwegians approached me.

“Lars wants to talk with you.”

What about?

“He didn’t say. Maybe you can get him to come out.”

I’ll try.

I made my way aft and down to the crew quarters. I knocked on Lars's door.

“Ya, who? I’m not comin’ out,” he slurred.

Hey Norway! It’s me, Canada.

“Oh Canada,” he started to sing. “Wait. I let you in.”

Lars opened the door and grinned up at me with his round red face. I’m six feet, two inches. He was about five-nine, burly and pot-bellied. He wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes, just jeans, unbuttoned at the waist. His reddish blonde hair was mussed. He ushered me in. Next to his bunk was the opened case of gin, with four empties scattered on the floor. Cigarette butts and ashes lay everywhere. His blue, bloodshot eyes still had a twinkle and his smirky grin revealed the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen that weren’t false.

“Sit down. Drink with me. I like you Canada. You a beautiful man,” he said, making what I took to be a clumsy pass at me.

I don’t like gin. What did you want to talk about?

He poured a tall tumbler of gin and handed it to me. “Doesn’t matter you don’t like gin. Drink anyway. Be friendly.”

I can only stay a couple of minutes; I’m supposed to be working.

“That’s not seaman’s work. I only work at sea. I told the Second Mate to fuck himself. You can too.”

But I need the money. They only pay me 70 bucks a month.

“I have money. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of Yen. Take it, take it,” he entreated, a whine creeping into his voice.

I brushed it aside. He tried stuffing it in my shirt pocket. I brushed it aside again.

Look, I’m not gay.... So, cheers.

I clinked glasses with him and took a sip of the warm, putrid gin. I got up and turned to go.

“I kill myself,” he said.

Not over me, I hope.

“No. Over everything. Over gin. Over this stupid life.”

Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe not. But it’s the only life you've got.

“You sure?”

Nothing's sure. It’s just what I believe.

“Do you believe in God, Canada?”

No. Not at all.

“How can you not believe in God?”

How can you believe in him?

“How did everything get here? How did you get here, if not God?”

I don’t know. But I don’t need to believe in God.

“Fuck you Canada. Fuck you! God is real. I know it.”

Maybe you know it, but you can’t prove he's real... no more than I can prove he's not.

“I can prove it!" He lowered his voice and smirked slyly: "You want to see God?”

Yeah, sure.

I turned once more to leave.

Lars lurched to his feet and spun me around. “I show you God!”

He grabbed me around the neck with powerful hands and began to squeeze. I was surprised, and surprisingly calm about it, too. I could feel the pressure building in my head. I was starting to see points of light as the blood stopped flowing to my visual cortex.

Half wondering what it was going to be like to be dead, I went slightly limp for a moment. As I sagged, Lars relaxed his grip. I brought both my hands up fast between his arms, breaking his grip completely. Basic Judo, remembered from some high school self-defense class.

Lars sank to his knees, sobbing.

So much for God, I said and shut his cabin door.

Two days later Lars emerged from his cabin. Clean and sober. He tossed the remains of his case of gin overboard. He looked at me once, grinned slyly then looked away. After that he refused to speak or make eye contact with me.

On foggy nights the sailors on watch had to walk forward about 100 metres to the focs’l deck to keep an eye out for lights. If any appeared, they rang the ship’s bell: once for a light to starboard, twice for one to port and three for dead ahead.

The first time I headed up there, I noticed the sailor on watch -- one of the Aussies -- standing sideways, scanning the horizon, then nervously glancing backwards. Curious.

Why do you do that?

“Dunno, mate. Everybody does it, even the old hands.”

I relieved him. After a few minutes staring into the fog, a creepy feeling came over me. My neck hairs bristled. I thought briefly of unrequited Lars and his sly grin. I thought of the long, dark distance between me and the ship’s bridge. All those little nooks and hiding places between the hatches.

I turned sideways. I glanced behind me.

©John Friesen – 2006-08-21

Dream a little dream of me

2006-08-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

The oddest dream I ever had

Most dreams are boring in the retelling or recollecting, but this dream is still vivid, even after many, many years. It's probably the only dream I've ever had that had a punch line!

It starts with me on my way to meet a friend at a fancy new restaurant -- in fact, it's both a restaurant and a movie theatre.

Inside, as I look around for my friend, the first movie of the evening is starting, though people are still filling the seats. Oddly, the movie is an old silent film, Nanook of the North.

I don't see my friend, so I go to the curtained-off booths which ring the main seating area to see if he's in one of them. He isn't, so I decide to take the last available booth.

The waiter soon arrives, bearing a large, colourful, multi-page menu. Looking through it, I notice that all of the dishes are songbirds: wrens, nightingales, titmouses, cardinals and more. All of them are shown in beautiful colour in their native habitats -- as well as trussed up and elegantly garnished. Under each picture of a finished dish, in small type, is a weight, followed by an asterisk, like this:

7.4 oz.*

And at the bottom of the menu is this footnote:

* Perch weight, including brains.

What's up with that!

2006-05-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Search for Torrent Files

Telemarketers and other pests

2006-04-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

Too funny to be missed!

copyright by Robert Byron - http://robeo.cjb.net/

One thing that has always bugged me, and I'm sure it does most of you, is to sit down at the dinner table only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating as they were to me. The call was from AT&T and it went something like this:

Me: Hello
AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T...

Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes This is AT&T...

Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: YES! This is AT&T, may I speak to Mr. Byron please?

Me: May I ask who is calling?
AT&T: This is AT&T.

Me: Ok, hold on.

At this point, I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, they were still waiting.

Me: Hello?
AT&T: Is this Mr. Byron

Me: May I ask who is calling please?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T...

Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T...

Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, is this Mr. Byron?

Me: Yes, is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes sir.

Me: The phone company?
AT&T: Yes sir.

Me: I thought you said this was AT&T.
AT&T: Yes sir, we are a phone company.

Me: I already have a phone.
AT&T: We aren't selling phones today Mr. Byron.

Me: Well what ever it is, I'm really not interested but thanks for calling.

When you are not interested in something, I don't think you can express yourself any plainer than by saying "I'm really not interested", but this lady was persistent.

AT&T: Mr. Byron we would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Now, I am sure she meant she was offering a "rate" of 10 cents a minute but she at no time used the word rate. I could clearly see that it was time to whip out the trusty old calculator and do a little ciphering.

Me: Now, that's 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day?
AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes sir that's right! 24 hours a day!

Me: 7 days a week?
AT&T: That's right.

Me: 365 days a year?
AT&T: Yes sir.

Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!!! That's amazing!
AT&T: We think so!

Me: That's quite a sum of money!
AT&T: Yes sir, it's amazing how it adds up.

Me: Ok, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560, and if you send an annual check, can I get a cash advance?
AT&T: Excuse me?

Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute.
AT&T: What are you talking about?

Me: You said you'd give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1008 per week and $52,560 per year. I'm just interested in knowing how you will be making payment.
AT&T: Oh no sir I didn't mean we'd be paying you. You pay us 10 cents a minute.

Me: Wait a minute here!!! Didn't you say you'd give me 10 cents a minute. Are you sure this is AT&T?
AT&T: Well, yes this is AT&T sir but......

Me: But nothing, how do you figure that by saying that you'll give me 10 cents a minute that I'll give you 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of subliminal telemarketing scheme? I've read about things like this in the Enquirer you know. Don't use your brainwashing techniques on me.
AT&T: No sir we are offering 10 cents a minute for.....

Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please!
AT&T: Sir I don't think that is necessary.

Me: Sure! You say that now! What happens later?
AT&T: What?

Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor!
AT&T: Yes Mr. Byron. Please hold.

So now AT&T has me on hold and my supper is getting cold. I begin to eat while I'm waiting for a supervisor. After a wait of a few minutes and while I have a mouth full of food:

Supervisor: Mr. Byron?
Me: Yeth?

Supervisor: I understand you are not quite understanding our 10 cents a minute
program.

Me: I'd thish Ath Teeth & Teeth?
Supervisor: Yes sir, it sure is.

I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to suppress my laughter and I had to be careful not to produce a snort.

Me: No, actually I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan.
Supervisor: Ok, no problem, I'll transfer you back to the person who was helping you.

Me: Thank you.

I was on hold once again and was getting really hungry. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone.

AT&T: Hello Mr. Byron, I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan?
Me: Do you have that friends and family thing because you can never have enough friends and I'm an only child and I'd really like to have a little brother...

AT&T: (click)

2006-04-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

How to be a billiards snob

Don't play American pool; the tables are too small and the balls too large.

Don't play snooker—all the scoring comes from potting balls (potting can be boring; every time I play I end up with an aching neck).

Do play English pocket billiards, arguably the most interesting and elegant of all billiard games.

In Europe and the States, they play variations of two- and three-cushion billiards without pockets, which Europeans call karambole.

In the Orient, they sometimes play a type of cushion billiards with two large red and two large white balls.

But nothing beats English billiards, or pocket billiards as it's sometimes known. The game has everything: potting, cannons, and winning and losing 'hazards'.

It's played on a full-size (6' x 12') snooker table, so there's lots of challenge in it. It's hard to make a foul shot, and if you do, the point penalties are small -- just two points. In fact, when we play, we normally just sacrifice our turn on a foul stroke and forget about the points, unless the foul leaves the other player at a significant disadvantage.

Let the game begin!

Here, roughly, is how you play English billiards: There is one red ball (the object ball) and two white cue balls (one plain, one with a spot). The game begins with one of the cue balls in hand (the D), the other cue ball on the centre spot, and the red (object) ball on the top spot.

Basic scoring is easy:

Pot the object ball - 3 points (also called a winning hazard)
Pot your opponent's cue ball - 2 points
Hit the object ball and your opponent's cue ball on the same stroke (order doesn't matter) - 2 points (this score is called a cannon)
Hit the red ball and then go into a pocket - 3 points (this is called a losing hazard, or loser)
Hit your opponent's cue ball then go into a pocket - 2 points (a different losing hazard)

NOTE: When the object (red) ball is pocketed, it is put back on the spot at the top of the table. When you pocket your opponent's cue ball, it stays down until you miss a shot. Most of the time, it's not a good idea to pocket a cue ball, since your play afterwards is restricted to pots and losers.

When a cue ball returns to the table, it is played "from hand," i.e., from the 'D' at the bottom of the table. All shots from hand must be aimed ahead of the balk line (that is, up the table).

Of course, you may combine scoring shots:

COMBINATION POINTS SCORED

Hit the white, then hit the red, then enter a pocket to score
2 + 2 = 4 (cannon + loser)

Hit the red, then pocket the other cue ball
2 + 2 = 4 (cannon + 2-point pot)

Hit the red, pocket it, and then hit the other cue ball
3 + 2 = 5 (3-point pot + cannon)

Hit the red, then hit the white, then have your ball enter a pocket
2 + 3 = 5 (cannon + 3-point loser; you hit red first)

Hit the white, pocket it, then hit the red and then enter a pocket
2 + 2 + 2 = 6

Hit the red, pocket it, then hit the white and pocket it
3 + 2 + 2 = 7 (2 pots + cannon)

Hit the red, pocket it, then hit the white and then enter a pocket
3 + 2 + 3 = 8 (pot + cannon + 3-point loser)

Hit the white, pocket it, then hit the red, pocket it, then enter a pocket
2 + 2 + 3 + 2 = 9 (2-point pot + cannon + 3-point pot + 2-point loser)

Hit the red, pocket it, hit the white, pocket it, then enter a pocket
3 + 2 + 2 + 3 = 10 (3-point pot + cannon + 2-point pot + 3-point loser)

As you can see, when combining scores, the ball you hit first controls the subsequent score you receive for pocketing your cue ball.

Now, here are two of my favourite shots:

This first, we call "The Morrison" because my billiards partner, Gordon, was practising it one evening as I came to meet him with another friend called Rob Morrison, visiting from the land of Oz.

As we entered, Gordon announced his 10th consecutive success with the shot and promptly named it in Rob's honour. This shot is a "loser" or losing hazard, because it is your cue ball that enters the pocket, not the object ball.

The shot is made as a plain 'half-ball' stroke. That is, you aim the very centre of your cue ball at the very outside edge of the object ball, and shoot with a smooth, follow-through stroke, being careful to hit your cueball slightly above centre, but with absolutely no side.

You can find a complete description of this shot in Useful Strokes for Billiard Players by Wallace Ritchie (if you can find this long out of print gem).

This second one we call "That Shot."

I sprang it successfully on Gordon during one of our regular competitions for the Billiards Championship of the Civilized Universe, If Any.

After I made the shot, Gordon exclaimed: "How did you make that shot?" The rest is billiards history, not that any really good players anywhere took note.

To make this shot, a cannon, you aim half-ball (see above) at the object ball, but stroke your cueball sharply, well below centre, with your cue as parallel to the table as is practical.

Again, you'll find details in "Useful Strokes..."

We've since gone on to whimsically name a number of other shots: The Ustinov, The Berton, and the Rodney -- each name in honour of departed favourites: Peter Ustinov, Pierre Berton and Rodney Dangerfield.

The Berton happens when you pot the other cue ball and follow it into the pocket. Why the name?
Pierre wrote extensively about Canada's North, where there is lots of white.

The Rodney is a shot that gets "no respect". It can happen for ill or good. Say, for instance, you are about to make a loser and one of the other balls trickles by and nudges it out of its intended trajectory -- you've been Rodneyed! Or the same in reverse: Your shot is about to fail when another ball intervenes and saves the score.

The Ustinov deserves diagramming (eventually). It is a loser into one of the side pockets that sends the object ball up (or down) the table, leaving it pretty much where it was, but on the opposite side of the table. Where you can make another Ustinov from hand (the "D").

We like to say the shot works only if you put "yoost enough" stuff on the ball (our apologies to any Scandinavians reading this).

We may add the Charlton, once Heston finally dies: You shoot at anything that moves -- which is illegal, since, of course, you may not shoot until all balls have come to rest.

2006-04-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Logophilia: the love that
can’t stop speaking its name

PROLIXITOUS LOCUTIONS FOR PERUSAL BY LEXICOGRAPHICAL IMPLEMENTERS WHOSE PHRASEOLOGICAL PROCLIVITIES INDICATE SESQUIPEDALIAN SENSIBILITIES:

Members of the family rosaceae would be cognate odoriferously, notwithstanding their designation by alternative appellations or sobriquets.
The erection of bona fide boundaries (of lignaceous or petraceous composition) are essential to the maintenance of orderly vicinage.
A surfeit suffices.
Verity is oft disclosed in oeniphic potations.
The application of effective impetus is best achieved when the implement designed for eradicating protuberous habiliment has been allotropically enhanced in a calorimetric fashion. (Is there an element of paranomasia here?)

A QUINTET OF VOCABLES FOR FURTHER STUDY,
THAT THEY MAY BE DELINEATED IN UNAMPHIBOLOGOUS TERMS.

Zoetrope
Aperient
Pavonine
Irrecusable
Pluviometrical

Where might you find a pair of thole-pins? What has Archimedes to do with them?

Finally: I don’t know about the tune, but the words are royalty free:

Felicitations on your nascence.
Felicitations on your nascence.
Felicitations on your nascence dear Insert Anyname
Felicitation on your nascence.

PS: If you're really a logophile, you likely have a copy of Poplollies and Bellibones, a Celebration of Lost Words, by Susan Kelz Sperling.

In the Pork Factory

2006-02-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

All the smart ones at once

“Everything but the squeal…”

He mutters that every time he walks past me. Me, crouched, shaving the flanks of my fiftieth hog that morning, rising upright for only a few seconds to stroke the sharpening-steel over my curved, razor-thin blade.

Him, supervising, looking, in his boiler suit and fat round face, just like the roughs – the big old sows and hogs we’ve been slaughtering and turning into usefulness all morning.

“Three hundred sixty an hour. Everything but the squeal…”

Roughs are too big, old and tough for eating, but they still make good fertilizer and pet food and their bristles are good for brushes. And the skin… Well, all pigskin is good skin.

I’ve done everything with the pigs. Shooed them up the ramp to the press. Stunned them with the shocker while they were immobilized in the press. Shackled and hoisted them with a chain around their left, rear metatarsals. Grabbed a foreleg in one hand and made the quick vee-shape cut to the carotid artery to let still-beating hearts pump out all their blood.

I’ve dropped them off the shackles into the scalding tank to soften the bristles and used my pole to jam their scalded carcasses onto the ramp to the hog-beater to jounce the hair off them in a tunnel of revolving shoemaker’s lasts.

My first day I remember seeing him there, just standing, looking at the roughs being shackled again after the hog beater, to be hauled by conveyor through the hog polisher. Think of a gate with two counter-rotating poles and on each pole, alternating leather straps and a light chains, spanking off the rest of the hair. For pig leather, you need hair-free skin. But it’s still not quite hair-free. The next gate blasts the hogs with jets of flame, singeing whatever hair is left, making it visible for me to shave off.

I like my job. The hog is still whole. It’s belly hasn’t been sliced yet, spilling warm guts onto the floor to be shoved into the giant pressure cookers – along with everything else not fit for eating, painting with, or wearing.

“Everything but the squeal.”

Is that the four-hundredth time I’ve heard him say that today?

We only slaughter roughs a few times a year. Old boars and sows past prime breeding age and no longer worth their feed. I wonder if he’s past his prime. Is he worth the food he eats? He’s just here in case anything goes wrong with the system. A big fat mechanic in a boiler suit. Would he still mutter about the squeal if he was hung upside down?

I do my work with reverence. Shaving them clean, as though washing a mortuarial corpse. Preparing them for final conversion from pig to pork and brushes and shoes and jackets.

I have dreamed about being one of them.

I always wake up just after being shaved, just before I pass through the final portal to where the butchers work. I have no idea what my dream means. But when I do dream it, I spend half my morning imagining it’s him herded up the ramp, shocked, shackled, stabbed, bled, scalded, polished and shaved. I imagine donning his blue denim pigskin and being admired for my clothes as I walk by the girls working in the hot dog room, on my way to my lunch break.

When I started, they tried the usual ‘let’s-gross-out-the-new-guy’ game by touring me through the beef killing floor, then taking me to the lunch room. I was expected to puke after seeing buckets of steaming blood and still-twitching skinned cow heads on conveyors heading to the sausage machines. I ordered a hot beef and gravy sandwich and wolfed it down. The rough gusto of my eating almost made them sick.

Beef slaughtering could be almost as interesting as hog slaughtering, but for the bovinity of the doomed animals. At the end, cows seem more confused than frightened. But pigs know what’s up the minute they land in the holding pens. The smartest ones do their best to avoid their murder, sneaking back down the ramp, or slipping to the far side of the pen. But all they do is end up in the last batch. All the smart ones at once.

They remind me of stories and images from the Holocaust death camps.
I do not think of myself as being like the human brutes who ran those slaughterhouses. But I do think of myself as a sonderkommando of meat.

On breaks, when I can, I hang around the pigs’ holding pens. Pigs are social, hierarchal, intelligent and possessed of rich inner lives, of deep imaginings. They can feel debilitating boredom and monumental rage. If you played a symphony to a pen of pigs might you not discover among them a musician, a great composer?

These pigs are victims, as surely as any slaughtered human: “If you prick me, do I not bleed?”

If I prick him, will he not bleed? A quick swipe to his inner thigh, just below the groin, separating skin and fat and flesh and slicing through his femoral artery will bleed him dry in minutes. No help in time. I can shackle, polish, singe and shave him before anyone realizes what is being done. Will I shave him with the same reverence as I do the hogs?

“Hey, you’ve ruined that flank!”

I see my knife has sliced deeply into hog flesh.

Fuck you, mechanic! I want to yell. Instead, I gesture to my eyes, where sweat pouring down my face has salt-blinded me. He reaches into his deep pocket and withdraws an unused wiping rag. I twirl it into a bandana, wrap it around my head and crouch, hands and knife held prayer-like for the next hog.

- John Friesen

The simple philosophy of shrimp

2006-01-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Shrimp have four—and only
Four—thought processes:

Have I reached bottom yet?

I’m so pretty!

Mmm! That looks tasty.

WHAAAT THE!!!???

When you think of it, by extension, those are really the only four thought processes any of us have.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

You are a Shrimp, so you might as well be a Shrimp.

CREDO

I am a shrimp
my thoughts are few
and not diverse.

A good thing that
or I might think
my life a curse.

Welcome to SHRIMPISM

Getting an 'A' for Atheism

2006-01-13T16:10:00.000-08:00

You might want to refresh your understanding of belief systems that don’t include a god in any form. An excellent place to begin is Wikipedia’s entry on Atheism. Reading it, I find that I’m more an apatheist than an atheist, in that I don't think the issue of God's existence is even worth discussing. Where I'm concerned, He just ain't. End of discussion.

Go Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

For the political/social side of atheism go to: http://www.atheists.org/

For the lighter side, (FSM, or Flying Spaghetti Monster as creator) go here: http://www.venganza.org/

Maybe there's an element of Gnosticism in FSM's positing that the universe-as-we-know-it was created by a spaghetti-like monster. There is at least as much proof of that as there is for the existence of any other god.

But in one area -- a piece of dogma, I guess -- there is a serious flaw in reasoning. FSM holds that natural disasters occur in inverse ratio to the number of pirates and that if only there were more pirates we wouldn't have so many natural disasters. The tsunami of Xmas 2004 and Katrina in 2005 may never have occurred if only you had bothered to be a pirate. But in fact, there are more pirates today than at any time in history. The real link is between the wearing of PIRATE CLOTHING and natural disasters.

So put on your gear: wear an eye patch, a fake hook for a hand and mutter AHHAHARRR MATEY! throughout the day. The next tsunami you prevent may be your own (especially if you live in California or Florida).

A critique of pure bullshit reason

2006-01-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

Origin of the Specious
Why do neo-conservatives doubt Darwin?

By Ronald Bailey

Darwinism is on the way out. At least, that's what Irving Kristol announced to a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington not long ago. Darwinian evolution, according to the godfather of neo-conservatism, "is really no longer accepted so easily by [many] biologists and scientists." Why? Because, Kristol explained, scientifically minded Darwin doubters are once again focusing on "the old-fashioned argument from design." That is to say, life in all its apparently ordered complexity cannot be understood in terms of chance mutation and the competition for survival. There must, after all, be a designer. So, exit Darwin; enter--or re-enter--God.

This may seem to some readers to be a personal quirk of Kristol's. Perhaps as he approaches Eternity (he's 77), he may want some grand company there. But Kristol's friend and colleague Robert Bork is claiming the same thing: Charles Darwin and his theories are finished. In his new work, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, Bork pins his own anti-evolutionary attack on Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, a recent book by biochemist Michael Behe. Bork declares that Behe "has shown that Darwinism cannot explain life as we know it." He adds approvingly that the book "may be read as the modern, scientific version of the argument from design to the existence of a designer." Bork triumphantly concludes: "Religion will no longer have to fight scientific atheism with unsupported faith. The presumption has shifted, and naturalist atheism and secular humanism are on the defensive."

Are these merely two isolated intellectual voices preaching that old-time design? Hardly. Last summer, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank devoted to studying the role of religion in public policy, and now headed by neoconservative Elliott Abrams, called together a group of conservative intellectuals, including Kristol, his wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Hoover Institution fellow Tom Bethell, to listen to anti-Darwin presentations by Behe and Michael Denton, author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Himmelfarb has told at least one colleague that she, too, thinks the Behe book "excellent."

There's yet more. The neoconservative journal Commentary, of all periodicals, joined this attack last June with a cover essay, "The Deniable Darwin," written by mathematician David Berlinski.

"An act of intelligence is required to bring even a thimble into being," wrote Berlinski, "why should the artifacts of life be different?" Berlinski warmly endorsed Behe's book, praising it as "an extraordinary piece of work that will come to be regarded as one of the most important books ever written about Darwinian theory. No one can propose to defend Darwin without meeting the challenges set out in this superbly written and compelling book." Commentary Editor Neal Kozodoy says he was "delighted" that his magazine served as a "forum for airing this issue." Berlinski "hit a nerve," according to Kozodoy, not only among the scientists he criticized, but "out there, among general readers, many of whom seem preoccupied with the issues he raised."

What's going on here? Opponents of Darwin traditionally have been led by biblical literalists, whose "arguments" on the subject have been generated mostly by the Book of Genesis. Now their camp includes some of the most prominent thinkers in the conservative intellectual movement.

As a matter of historical curiosity, this new turning of neocon eyes toward heaven comes just as Pope John Paul II has officially recognized that "the theory of evolution is more than an hypothesis." Indeed, it comes as evolutionary thinking itself is shedding considerable light on an array of questions and problems, from brain growth to the development of immune systems, from sociobiology to economics, from ecology to software design. Such research is yielding anti-designer results. F.A. Hayek long ago recognized the phenomenon of "spontaneous order" and described how it arose in markets, families, and other social institutions. Now, ingenious computer models are confirming Hayek's insights. It is increasingly obvious that social systems, from commerce to language, evolve and adapt without the need for top-down planning and organization. Order in markets is generated through processes analogous to Darwinian natural selection in biology. In other words, we can indeed have apparent design without a designer; the world is demonstrably brimming with just such phenomena.

But the neocon assault on Darwinism may not be based on either science or spirituality so much as on politics and political philosophy. That is the view of Paul Gross, a biologist and self-described conservative. Gross is much concerned with the interplay of science and politics--he is the co-author of the 1994 book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science--and is puzzled by the attacks on evolutionary biology by people whose political views he largely shares. Regarding Commentary's anti-Darwin article, he says he is mystified that the magazine "would publish the damned thing without at least passing it by a few scientists first."

Gross believes that the conservative attack on Darwin may be a case of tactical politics. Some conservative intellectuals think religious fundamentalists are "essential to the political program of the right," says Gross. As a gesture of solidarity, he says, these intellectuals are publicly embracing arguments that appear to "keep God in the picture."

The end of the Cold War may also be a factor. Marx fell with the Soviet Union; Freud has been discredited by modern psychology and neuroscience. The last standing member of the 19th century's unholy materialist trinity is Darwin. Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial, makes the connection clear: "Darwinism is the most important of the materialist ideologies--Marxism, Freudianism, and behaviorism are others--which have done so much damage to science and society in the 20th century." Kristol agrees. "All I want to do," he told his AEI audience, "is break the bonds of Darwinian materialism which at the moment restrict our imagination. For the moment that's enough."

But something deeper seems to be going on, and the key to it can be found in Bork's assertion in his book that religious "belief is probably essential to a civilized future." These otherwise largely secular intellectuals may well have turned on Darwin because they have concluded that his theory of evolution undermines religious faith in society at large. Of course, this is not a novel thought. Many others have arrived at the same conclusion. Conservative activist Beverly LaHaye, a biblical literalist who is president of Concerned Women for America, puts the matter directly: "If the biblical account of creation in Genesis isn't true, how can we trust the rest of the Bible?"

Kristol and his colleagues may worry that once this one thread is pulled from the fabric of religious belief, perhaps the whole will become unraveled, with grave social consequences. Without the strictures and traditions imposed by a religion that promises to punish sinners, the moral controls that moderate our base desires will lose their validity, leading ultimately to moral chaos. Ironically, today many modern conservatives fervently agree with Karl Marx that religion is "the opium of the people"; they add a heartfelt, "Thank God!"

It is no secret that many neocons are in a deep funk over the state of American society. (For an especially glum assessment, dip into Bork's best-seller.) In the 1960s, many of them advocated federal programs to ameliorate such social ills as poverty, crime, racial discrimination, illegitimacy, and drug abuse. But as one social welfare program after another succumbed to its unintended consequences, they recognized the limits of governmental intervention. Having suffered a crisis of faith in the efficacy of social science, they now believe that only the restoration of religious belief among the masses can re-establish order in American society. As David Brooks recently wrote in the conservative journal The Weekly Standard, policy intellectuals used to sound like economists; now they sound like ministers. He's right. At conservative confabs today, the longing for yet one more Great Awakening of religious fervour is palpable.

Kristol has been quite candid about his belief that religion is essential for inculcating and sustaining morality in culture. He wrote in a 1991 essay, "If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded--or even if it suspects--that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe."

Another prominent neoconservative, Leon Kass, author of Toward a More Natural Science (1985), and a member of the University of Chicago's prestigious Committee on Social Thought, also believes that evolutionary theory poses a threat to social order: "[T]he creationists and their fundamentalist patrons...sense that orthodox evolutionary theory cannot support any notions we might have regarding human dignity or man's special place in the whole. And they see that Western moral teaching, so closely tied to Scripture, is also in peril if any major part of Scripture can be shown to be false."

At the heart of the neoconservative attack on Darwinism lies the political philosophy of Leo Strauss. Strauss was a German political philosopher who fled the Nazis in 1938 and began teaching at the University of Chicago in 1949. In an intellectual revolt against modernity, Strauss focused his work on interpreting such classics as Plato's Republic and Machiavelli's The Prince.

Kristol has acknowledged his intellectual debt to Strauss in a recent autobiographical essay. "What made him so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that `the truth will make men free.'" Kristol adds that "Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make some [emphasis Kristol's] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences."

Kristol agrees with this view. "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," he says in an interview. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."

In crude terms, some critics of Strauss argue that he interpreted the ancient philosophers as offering two different teachings, an esoteric one which is available only to those who read the ancient texts closely, and an exoteric one accessible to naive readers. The exoteric interpretations were aimed at the mass of people, the vulgar, while the esoteric teachings--the hidden meanings--were vouchsafed to the few, the philosophers. Philosophers know the truth, but must keep it hidden from the vulgar, lest it upset them. What is the hidden truth known to philosophers? That there is no God and there is no ultimate foundation for morality. As Kristol suggests, it is necessary to keep this truth from the vulgar because such knowledge would only engender despair in them and lead to social breakdown. In his book, On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero, Strauss asserts with unusual clarity that Socratic dialogues are "based on the premise that there is a disproportion between the intransigent quest for truth and the requirements of society, or that not all truths are always harmless."

Political scientist Shadia Drury, a passionate critic of Strauss, puts it this way: "For Strauss, the ills of modernity have their source in the foolish belief that there are no harmless truths, and that belief in God and in rewards and punishments is not necessary for political order....[H]e is convinced that religion is necessary for the well-being of society. But to state publicly that religion is a necessary fiction would destroy any salutary effect it might have. The latter depends on its being believed to be true....If the vulgar discovered, as the philosophers have always known, that God is dead, they might behave as if all is permitted."

Thus, to preserve society, wise people must publicly support the traditions and myths that sustain the political order and that encourage ordinary people to obey the laws and live justly. People will do so only if they believe that moral rules are divinely decreed or were set up by men who were inspired by the Divine.

Kristol restated this insight nearly five decades ago in an essay in Commentary dealing with Freud: "If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without...let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine--for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish."
Thus, following the lead of Strauss and Kristol, those who support the attacks on evolutionary biology may be reasonably suspected of practicing a high-minded hypocrisy. They want to bolster popular morality and preserve social order. Attacking Darwin helps to sustain what Plato regarded as a "Noble Lie"-- in this case preserving the faith of the common people in Genesis, and thus the social order.

But perhaps this analysis is too cynical. Perhaps Darwinism really is being challenged by new scientific evidence. In that case, the neoconservative intellectuals would be on the cutting edge of a reassessment of evolutionary biology. Kristol certainly seems to think that Behe's and Berlinski's attacks on Darwin have "fractured the dogmatism of the neo-Darwinian synthesis," and he believes that as a consequence "there is room for metaphysical and theological speculation." Let's take a look.

Mathematician David Berlinski's Commentary article, "The Deniable Darwin," has been warmly embraced by conservative intellectuals. The magazine published a voluminous correspondence concerning the piece in a subsequent issue, including letters from both critics and supporters. Hoover Institution fellow and long-time anti-Darwinian Tom Bethell, for example, commended Commentary. "Now we no longer believe in the idea of progress," he wrote, "and faith in biological evolution may be jeopardized as a result." Rabbi Daniel Lapin, head of the politically conservative Jewish organization Toward Tradition, hailed the Berlinski article as "a shot in what is becoming a great moral revolution." He added, "Discovering that Darwin is deniable might tell us a little of how primitive life began. It would tell us everything about how modern life should continue. Today's greatest question is whether humans have been touched by the divine and thus possess moral judgment or whether we are just sophisticated animals."

But Berlinski stoutly declares in Commentary that he is no creationist. He claims merely to be engaged in critiquing the failures of Darwinism. Berlinski is particularly savage about what he regards as Darwinism's tautological character. "Time and again, biologists do explain the survival of an organism by reference to its fitness and the fitness of an organism by reference to its survival, the friction between the two concepts kindling nothing more than the observation that some creatures have been around for a very long time."
In Berlinski's view, evolutionary theory simply says that the ones that survive are the ones that survive. But that is not quite right. Darwinian natural selection sifts for useful variations among mutations, thus natural selection generates increased fitness, not just preserving the fittest. This process generates new species, species B being the descendant of earlier species A. This claim is clearly more than a tautology.

Berlinski also contrasts geological theory with evolutionary theory. He argues that geological theory offers general rules that, for example, exclude the possibility of "a mountain arranging itself in the shape of the letter `A'." He then grandly proclaims that "the theory of evolution, by contrast, is incapable of ruling anything out of court [emphasis his]."

The comparison between geology and evolutionary biology is particularly apt, but not in the way Berlinski thinks. Geology, like evolutionary biology, is to a considerable extent a historical science which tries to analyze unrepeatable events that happened in the distant past. Events in geology, like those in evolution, are compounded of myriad facts, contingencies, and details that simply cannot be completely accounted for. Despite geology's general and well-understood principles--the operation of faults, plate tectonics, upthrust, etc.--geologists are still unable to predict an earthquake's strength, time, or location. But Berlinski certainly never says that geology is not a science.

Berlinski is simply wrong when he claims that evolutionary biology "is incapable of ruling anything out of court." Two examples: Darwinians would confidently predict that fossilized human skeletons will never be found among undisturbed Jurassic fossils. Also, biologists agree that a general principle of evolutionary biology rules out the possibility that there are organisms that will sacrifice their own reproductive success in order to enhance the reproductive success of some other species.

Berlinski also argues that mathematical calculation shows it is absurdly improbable that life could have arisen by a chance combination of chemicals in the primordial soup. Berlinski asserts that randomness overwhelms any other process if we try to maintain the perspective of naturalism. Therefore we are treated to calculations that show the number of all possible proteins is far greater than the number of atoms in the universe or the number of seconds that have passed since the Big Bang. These calculations are supposed to overwhelm our capacity to believe that life could arise spontaneously. But is life really so improbable? Investigations into complexity theory by Stuart Kauffman and other scientists at the Santa Fe Institute indicate otherwise: that spontaneous order may be part and parcel of the universe.

The other new anti-Darwin champion is Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe. In Darwin's Black Box, Behe argues that many cellular systems are "irreducibly complex." An irreducibly complex "system needs several components before it can work properly." He uses the humble mousetrap as an example--one cannot catch mice with only a platform, then catch more with the addition of a spring--all the pieces must be there for it to work. Behe then proceeds to describe in great detail examples of what he thinks are irreducibly complex biological systems, e.g., bacterial flagella, the cascade required for blood to clot, and the chemical chain that must fire in order to for us to see. In each case, he asserts that there is no way that such a complex structure could have arisen gradually--all the links must be there in order for the systems to operate properly.
Behe, in a letter to The Wall Street Journal, frankly acknowledges that his is "a distinctly minority view among scientists on the question of what caused evolution." But Behe wants it clearly understood that he is no biblical literalist: "In the book I specifically say I am not a creationist, agree that the universe is billions of years old, [and] believe in descent of life from a common ancestor."

Unlike Berlinski, Behe more or less concedes that Darwinian evolution occurred once the biochemical systems operating inside of cells were "designed." In his view, the flowering of the various species we find in the fossil record and in the world today were potential in the original "designed" cells that came into existence 3.5 billion years or so ago.

Behe is addressing the origins problem--how did the whole show get started in the first place? It is true that no satisfactory answer for the question of how life began has yet been devised; it is a question that scientists are only beginning to address in an organized manner. Richard Dawkins, the arch-Darwinist author of The Selfish Gene (1976) and last year's Climbing Mount Improbable, accuses Behe of intellectual laziness on the question. "The role of a biochemist is to work on problems," he says, "not just throw up his hands and say that since it's not obvious how some biochemical cascade may have evolved, then it must therefore be the result of design."

Among those working on the origins question is biologist and Nobel laureate Christian De Duve, who has outlined a theory of how life might have arisen. He dubs his theory the "thioester-iron world," after the chemicals he thinks could have reacted together to create "protometabolisms" that could evolve. He admits his theory is very speculative, but believes that one day biologists may find traces of the prior existence of these protometabolisms in the biochemistry of contemporary organisms.

Another promising approach is complexity theory. Scientists at the Santa Fe Institute argue that life is practically the inevitable result of the laws of physics and chemistry. According to Stuart Kauffman, life bootstrapped itself into existence through auto catalytic sets of chemicals that were in the primordial soup. Kauffman postulates that if a chemical soup has enough different types of compounds, they will begin to act in metabolic ways and be able to reproduce and evolve. (See "Who Ordered That?" February 1996.)

Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and author of Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (1986), explains how Kauffman's theory might be checked out: "You take what you think are a nice set of chemicals and you put them together. You decide what the appropriate energy source is and you just follow it. If a network of reactions à la Kauffman sets itself up--A catalyzes B, B catalyzes C, C catalyzes D--and you don't get all tar or an equilibrium mixture where nothing changes, but energy is being used productively ...with certain chemicals taking over the mixture and others disappearing," then you will have established a base from which to proceed. "Now you play with initial ingredients and see how broad the base is of chemicals which will support this pre-biotic simulation." If the chemical reaction networks remain open-ended, then biochemists may have developed a plausible example of how such networks began to evolve into living things.

In fact, a German scientist, Günter Wächtershäuser, has recently published a paper in Science magazine describing his efforts to uncover such plausible protometabolisms. He has found an open-ended chemical cycle that produces an active form of acetic acid, thought to mirror an ancient metabolic pathway in bacteria. Such a protometabolism, he argues, could have existed billions of years ago on metal sulfide surfaces found at hot deep ocean vents, and could have been one of the first steps in the evolution of life.

Kauffmanesque spontaneous self-organization would be a different source of order from that yielded by the process of Darwinian natural selection. Of course, Kauffman's work needs to be validated, but it is the kind of scientific theory that could make Behe's claims moot and undermine Berlinski's mathematical improbability argument. Berlinski's counterargument against the work of the Santa Fe Institute, by the way, is simple denial. "I find nothing of value in various theories of self-organization," he wrote in his reply to the Commentary correspondence, "the very idea is to my mind incoherent; but I leave it to others to make the case." Why not him? Berlinski thinks life's too short. "[S]oon the night comes, as Dr. Johnson reminds us, wherein no man can work."

So if Darwinian evolutionary biology is still a viable scientific theory, is it nevertheless a "harmful truth" in the Straussian sense? Does it necessarily undermine the moral order? Is it necessarily in conflict with religion? Kristol thinks so. According to him, it undermines even "the belief that there is such a thing as a moral code."
Last summer, the Divine Action Conference, held biannually at the pope's summer palace near Rome, brought together a group of scientists and theologians to address the issue of what science and religion may have in common. The conference topic was evolution.

The Divine Action Conference is jointly sponsored by the Vatican and the Center for Theology and Natural Science. The head of CTNS, Robert Russell, is both a physicist and an ordained minister in the Church of Christ. Asked about evolution, Russell said, "As a Christian, I believe in God as creator....All of nature articulates God's grace as creator and redeemer. So evolution, which we discover through science, is in fact the way God goes about being creator." Another conference participant, the Christian philosopher Nancey Murphy from the Fuller Theological Seminary, said: "I think it is a terrible misconception to see evolutionary biology and Christian theology as in competition. Ever since the rise of modern science, Christians have had to come to terms with some understanding of God working through natural processes. And God's action in natural biological processes should not be an exception to that."

These views are called "compatibilism." They see no necessary contradiction between evolutionary theory and belief in a divine creator. Russell and Murphy are "theistic evolutionists." In fact, during his lecture at AEI, Irving Kristol revealed that he is probably a compatibilist: "I accept evolution. Something like that happened." Compatibilism is scorned by some scientists; Richard Dawkins, for example, wonders, "Why deliberately set [life] up in the one way that makes it look like you don't exist?"

Still, it received a big boost in October when Pope John Paul II issued a statement that said, "fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just an hypothesis." The pope even suggested that humans arose from animal ancestors but added that, "If the human body has its origin in living material which pre-exists it, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God." The pope's statement added, "The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of results of studies undertaken independently from each other constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."

The pope certainly knows what he is talking about--the findings of palaeontology and genetics have converged. Today, biologists can construct nearly identical family trees of organisms using independently derived information from systematic biological classifications, the fossil record, and molecular data from the genomes of organisms.
Taxonomists classify organisms into familiar groups of kingdoms, families, genera, down to species by comparing their similarities and differences. The process of classifying reveals relationships, e.g., horses and hogs are more similar to each other than they are to hawks or hornbills. This implies that horses and hogs descended from some earlier mammal species rather than from some earlier bird species.

The fossil record supports the findings of the taxonomists by providing insights into the ancestral species of mammals and birds. The mammalian and the avian branches on the tree of life clearly derived from different types of reptiles that lived tens of millions of years ago.

Molecular biology traces how genes have changed over time. ln fact, some research suggests that mutations can act like a molecular clock that shows how long ago the last common ancestor of two different lineages lived. The more differences in the genes, the longer ago the common ancestor lived. For example, genetic changes show that horses and hogs shared a last common ancestor far more recently than either shared one with hawks or hornbills.

Despite the strong scientific support for evolutionary biology, there is no denying at least some of the force of the neo-conservative arguments about the role religion has played in sustaining civil society. Even Herbert Spencer, that champion of individualism, concluded in his autobiography that "the control exercised over men's conduct by theological beliefs and priestly agency, has been indispensable." There is an eerie sort of agreement between Darwinist Dawkins, Leo Strauss, and Irving Kristol. All three believe that religion's role in society may be to bolster social cohesion. Religious belief can persuade people, especially young men, to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community. Perhaps religion functions as a type of group selection device--it might be bad for individual members of society, but it is good for the whole and enhances the success of a group in its competition with other groups. Even Hayek argued in The Fatal Conceit (1988) that groups that evolved better institutions would out compete and replace groups with less effective institutions. Could Western religions be such institutions?

For Robert Russell, Nancey Murphy, and the pope, evolutionary biology doesn't undermine the authority of Christianity in the moral sphere, but their views are quite sophisticated. University of Florida historian of science Frederick Gregory has a point when he writes that people--such as many of the intellectuals at the Divine Action Conference--"who have felt forced by Darwin to admit that God has no reference to nature have made theology unrecognizable as theology to the majority of believers for whom a demythologized Christianity is no real Christianity at all."

Now, Irving Kristol, Leon Kass, and Robert Bork are smart men. They would certainly qualify as Straussian "philosophers." Perhaps they know the philosopher's "hidden knowledge." If so, what do they think they should do? A hint of how they may be responding can be found in Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, written by Gertrude Himmelfarb. "So solicitous of morality were the Victorian agnostics," she wrote in 1959, "that they were even willing to make concessions to religion in the interests of public morality. They were willing to suspend their own disbelief in order to bolster up other people's morals--not their own, for of their own they had no doubt."

In 1995, Kristol acknowledged that some of his colleagues are emulating these Victorian agnostics when he wrote that many "neo-conservatives are not themselves religiously observant--though more and more are coming to be. This leads to accusations by liberal intellectuals of hypocrisy or cold-blooded political instrumentalism. But such accusations miss the point. All political philosophers prior to the twentieth century, regardless of their personal piety or lack thereof, understood the importance of religion in the life of the political community. Neo-conservatives, because of their interest in and attachment to classical (as distinct from contemporary) political philosophy, share this understanding."

A year ago, I asked Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, "I don't believe in God, I have faith in God." Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that "that is a stupid question," and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, "it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion."

We cannot know the innermost secrets of their hearts, but if these conservative intellectuals are indeed carrying out "the duty of the wise," then they have less faith in their fellow citizens than does the pope. The Vatican, after all, has had occasion to absorb a truth succinctly stated by biologist Paul Gross: "Everybody who has undertaken in the last 300 years to stand against the growth of scientific knowledge has lost." That lesson has a moral: If Darwinian evolution is scientifically true, then we have no choice but to go forward and build as good a society as we can in the light of this truth.

The Vatican also brings to bear the wisdom of St. Augustine, whose confessed life may be understood as an inquiry into nature and grace. "If we come to read anything in Holy Scripture," he wrote 16 centuries ago, "that is in keeping with the faith in which we are steeped, capable of several meanings, we must not by obstinately rushing in, so commit ourselves to any one of them that, when perhaps the truth is more thoroughly investigated, it rightly falls to the ground and we with it."

Contributing Editor Ronald Bailey is a television producer in Washington, D.C.
You can find this and other thoughtful articles at
http://www.reason.com/rbmain1.shtml

Insight on the English language

2005-12-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

English is really two languages

I wish I’d paid more attention in Linguistics class. I might have learned more than that “schwa” is an elided vowel sound. And I wish I’d done more thinking in History class, because I might have earlier discovered the linguistic significance of the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

Instead, it took an American ex-English teacher, inventor of the slasher film genre, and direct marketing demi-god, to reveal what should have been obvious to me: English is really two parallel languages.

Herschell Gordon Lewis pointed the way in his book, Direct Marketing Copy that Sells! In the chapter “Emotion vs. Intellect”, he writes: “When emotion and intellect come into conflict, emotion always wins.” Then he shows examples: “This is to notify you,” (intellectual) vs. “I’m writing to alert you” (emotional). But the clincher is his table of emotional and intellectual words. Here’s a sample:

Emotional Words to Intellectual Words

speed up -- accelerate
there’s more -- additionally
help -- aid
joke -- anecdote
smart -- astute
eager -- avid
give -- donate
good -- beneficial

By now you get his point: emotional words sell better than intellectual ones because they affect us more strongly. As I scanned Lewis’s much more extensive list, I had one of those ‘Aha!’ moments that occasionally brighten the lives of writers: Most of the words in the emotional list came from the old mother tongue, the Anglo Saxon words of Beowulf. The words in the intellectual list were largely imports from Latin, by way of French, brought over by William the Conqueror, of Normandy.

By 1067 Norman French was the official language of the royal court of England, and the new language was quickly becoming standard among the Anglo Saxon nobles (those who hadn’t been slain or run off their lands) and was being adopted by anybody with ambitions around William’s court. But the old language never died out. It stayed alive in the language of ordinary people and slowly absorbed the new one until, by the 14th Century, we had an English language we could begin to recognize—the language of Geoffrey Chaucer. His “Canterbury Tales begins:

“Whanne that Aprille with hes shoures soote the drochte of March hath perced to the roote...”

In case you need a hand, in modern-day, poetical English we’d probably say something like: “When April’s sweet showers have pierced the drought of March to the root...”.

Having two languages in one gives us a richness of choice that I doubt exists in other languages (and this is not an assertion of the superiority of English). We can say:

“The erection of bona fide boundaries (of lignaceous or petraceous composition) are essential to the maintenance of orderly vicinage.”

Or we may simply assert: “Good fences make good neighbours.”

We can say: “A surfeit suffices.”

Or we can get down to earth with: “Enough is enough!”

We can put a severed horse head in your bed to soften you up for our irrecusable offer. We can be pedantic, or we can teach. We can use a rain gauge, or a pluviometer.

We can be aperient, or we can take a shit.

2005-09-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ant life

If you think of The Big City as an anthill, then this is my life among the ants.

The thing I remember first about ants is their smell. It is a moment concisely, but completely, encoded in one brief olfactory memory. I was five, maybe six, and had recently lost an important part of my innocence. For at that point in my short life, without ever having been exposed to death or dying -- without ever knowing someone who once was and then simply wasn't, I became terrifyingly aware that it all ends.

I knew with crushing certainty that I would die. And I knew, equally certainly, what death meant -- the utter dissolution of everything that was me. I knew how it would come, too, in quantum leaps. Now I'm six. Snap my fingers and I'm older. Snap again, I'm a teenager. Snap again, as old as my parents. And again, and I'm an old, old man. Snap! Gone! So fast, so fast!

I remember the terror that came with my horrible discovery. And although I don't recall how I managed to tuck my horrible knowing away in some seldom visited wormhole in my mind, tuck it away I did, for a time.

And then it was summer. Hot, dry, blue-sky, endless prairie summer. The first summer I was truly aware of as a separate, special season, part of an endlessly repeating cycle. My first real summer of knowing it was not my only, or my last summer.

I was mooching around by the river, by myself, simply enjoying summer. Then I noticed the smell -- a wonderful, warm, pungent smell, entirely different from anything I'd ever smelled before. Not offensive, just immensely, uniquely, interestingly different. I soon spotted the source: a small mound made of a mixture of sand and mud and small twigs. An anthill -- and it was overflowing with ants.

I bent down close to smell, to confirm that this truly was the source of my magnificent odour -- and it is that moment that is forever locked in memory.

Senses merged. As I gazed at the ants, I was simultaneously aware of the heat of the summer sun on my skin, and of a strange droning that pushed all the other sounds away. And yet there was no sound from the anthill. It was the odour. It was too much for one simple sense, so it swamped my hearing too. It hummed.

To this day, I find it hard to comprehend the complexity of that moment. It simply hummed. It was a moment of immanence. Those ants were life, and their life hummed and filled the universe. For a moment, I was terrified, both by the strangeness of my intertwining senses, and by the sudden recollection of my death fear. And then the terror was gone. And there was I, watching and marvelling at the ants. And there, in a way, is an incomplete metaphor for my life.

Does it seem odd that I use a bucolic
scene to express my love of Big City life?

Well, like Walt Whitman, I don't mind the contradiction. Life -- even the simple life of an anthill -- has a richness, an intricacy, a redolence... a hum that fills the world.

Life is action, and that's enough meaning for me. I'm too fascinated to stop watching and I treasure those rare moments when the Big City abducts my senses.

Big cities are where life really hums.

Trouble begins with uncertainty

2005-09-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Contradiction and human understanding

In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself!"

If he had been writing as Werner Heisenberg, he might well have said: "Do I contradict myself? Maybe I do and maybe I don't."

The fatuous desire to be 100% self-consistent is a doorway into lunacy and fundamentalism of all stripes: religious, economic, romantic, logical and political -- whatever you have. So let's just say I'll make no attempt at being consistent, because even inconsistency can serve the ends of liberal humanism, which is my one and only creed.

Last night I watched a show about WWII -- the war in the Pacific. The show detailed the number of ships damaged and lost to kamikaze attacks (800 and 35, respectively); the number of civilians, Japanese and American soldiers killed in the battle for Okinawa (100,000, 70,000 and 12,000). It also detailed the numbers killed outright by atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (100,000 and 35,000), and the total deaths attributable to WWII (about 55,000,000). Do those numbers affect you? Intellectually they may: "What an appalling number of deaths!"

But emotionally...? Well, they are just big numbers.

What really affected me were these two scenes:

In the first, after the battle, a small boy, perhaps age 3, sits naked in the rubble, covered in dust and dirt, quivering helplessly -- as no child ever should.

In the second, home movies of an American marine and his wife and children played with a voiceover of a letter the marine wrote to his children in the event he didn't make it home (he didn't): The letter was full of simple, but eloquent wisdom. It talked about how he would live on through them... how all that was good in life would not vanish, but continue through them. No religious rubbish about afterlives and angels and God's will... just a simple man's inspiring thoughts about life and its meaning.

It's a pity some in the world have managed to turn both 'liberal' and 'humanism' into disparaging terms.