If they were Americans, you'd say they suffered from math brain. But they're not -- they're Chinese. So allow me to coin the term "abacus brain" so we might understand China's situation.
What is abacus brain? Consider the poultry farmers in China's Hebei province. Until last year, they sold duck eggs at a premium because the yolks had a reddish tint, a trait prized by consumers. To create that reddish tint, the farmers mixed red food dye with the ducks' feed. The particular red dye is a human carcinogen.
If you think with an abacus brain, you consider ways to increase egg sales but ignore the impact of feeding your customers cancer-causing food. The reliable abacus can calculate the difference in profit between selling normal and dyed yolks. On the other hand, no amount of abacus calculations could predict when the customer base would die from eating food-borne carcinogens.
Abacus brain, or solving for X while ignoring Y, is prevalent in China.
To calculate China's future energy needs, the government has concluded that 50 new coal-fired power plants will have to be built every year for the next few years -- that's one per week during the present five-year plan.
Some major cities already suffer from terrible air pollution. The smog is so bad that local citizens have developed a new way to measure it -- the building index. If one looks down the street and counts 10 buildings, the building index is 10. On a clearer day, the index might be 20, and so forth.
China's government has projected the country's future electric needs without any thought given to breathable air. In fact, China's air pollution has become one of its leading exports. From Los Angeles to Seattle, the west coast now receives a windblown blanket of smog and soot from the Orient.
Americans do worry that China will become the world's major economic power in this century. And when it comes to pets, Americans are petrified that China will poison their precious flea hosts. However, unless and until China learns how to run its banking system, these worries are premature.
China has approached banking as if banking is a math equation waiting to be balanced. Banking is a system, and as a system it has no relation to mathematics.
Banking is another word for trust. Yes, banks balance accounts daily, but that is a chore, a chore analogous to restaurants cleaning dishware and refilling salt shakers.
Your checking account is known in banking parlance as a demand deposit because you can demand every penny of it at any time. In China, checks haven't caught on. The typical Chinese worker is paid in cash. Businesses haven't taken to accepting checks for payment either. Debit and credit cards are seldom used and remain novelties.
In China, the government runs the banking system. The Chinese people know that their government leaders think with abacus in hand. Thus, if too many customers demand their money on a given day, the government will simply declare a bank holiday.
China also maintains tight restrictions on foreign currency transactions. Again, inflows and outflows are viewed as an equation to be balanced rather than as a measure of global trust in China's economy.
As long as the Chinese people allow Communist party hacks to run the banks, then China will remain what it is now -- a nation on the cusp of financial collapse. Yet for China to change its ways, there is the irony that a complete financial collapse may have to happen. Something drastic will have to occur to cause one billion people to rise up against their suffocating masters. Protests on the scale of Tiananmen Square just won't do.
At present, China is publicly responding to complaints about tainted foods and pharmaceuticals, as well as its lethal air pollution, corrupt banks and restrictive foreign currency policies. But it is too soon to tell whether the government's response is genuine or just another exercise in face-saving legerdemain for which the Chinese are famous.
China can have a modern banking system any time it wants. But to do so, the Chinese must learn that "No MSG!" means more than just no MSG.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
George Marshall Defined American Leadership
If you wonder how far the United States has slipped, then you need only look back sixty years to June 5, 1947. On that date, Harvard University’s commencement speaker, George C. Marshall, outlined the European Recovery Program.
Whenever I ask people under the age of sixty, "Who was George Marshall?", I almost always get a blank stare. Rare is the young person who can identify him; rarer still is the person who knows any details of his life.
George C. Marshall was a humble man born in Uniontown, PA. He later became General of the Army and commanded our armed forces in the first true world war, that being World War 2.
After the war, President Truman appointed him Secretary of State. The European Recovery Program is known as the Marshall Plan.
Europe went to war on September 1, 1939-the same day Marshall was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff. By the end of May, 1940, the German army had routed Allied forces. British and French forces were in retreat but managed to escape annihilation in the famous Dunkirk boatlift.
The United States aided Allied forces with shipments of arms and supplies during the period 1939-1941. But our nation just did not see itself getting involved in combat.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the Selective Training and Service Act in 1940, and Congress approved the first peacetime draft. The draft came up for renewal in the summer of 1941. The U. S. House of Representatives did extend the draft, but only by a single vote.
When Marshall became Chief of Staff, the U. S. Army consisted of 200,000 poorly-trained soldiers. The draft authorized an army of 900,000 soldiers. However, the draftees were anything but willing soldiers given the isolationist mood of the country.
Then the die was cast on December 7, 1941. Japan declared war, and Germany followed suit the next day.
Winston Churchill, England’s Prime Minister, was perhaps the only man on Earth who believed that Gen. Marshall could defeat the Axis powers. Indeed, Churchill tried at every juncture to drag the United States into the war. He knew that England would eventually be defeated if we did not come to their aid.
As for the rest of the world, I doubt that anyone believed that Gen. Marshall could build a fighting army from scratch, replace the sunken Pearl Harbor fleet, and wage a global war, let alone win it. You can bet that Germany and Japan didn’t think that he could (or would).
George C. Marshall was the greatest military commander in all of history. Churchill called him the "organizer of victory" which is the kind of fitting understatement that the Brits are famous for.
In our times, Colin Powell held the titles of Army Chief of Staff and Secretary of State. I like Colin Powell. But somehow, victories against Iraq’s Republican Guards and Panama’s police force don’t quite measure up to defeating Japan and Germany.
As Secretary of State, George C. Marshall sold the world a bold new idea-the Marshall Plan. For his efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
As Secretary of State, Colin Powell sold the world a bill of goods-Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
FDR was a mediocre president happily turning America toward Socialism until a great war ended his agenda. "W" is a mediocre president without a plan of any kind. His war hasn’t been big enough to give him an agenda.
Congress today is just as inept as it was in 1941. Whereas the 1941 bunch loved isolationism, the 2007 bunch cannot muster the votes needed to close the borders.
Our modern generals don’t seem to be mad at the enemy. Given the sneak attack on the Pentagon, you would expect them to at least act indignant. No. Today’s generals focused more on turning Jessica Lynch into "G.I. Jane" than they have on leading decisive victories.
When I took the public school version of American History in 1966, my teacher never made it to the chapter on World War 2. I suspect that your history teacher was just as derelict. And that is probably why so few people know of George C. Marshall.
Going forward, maybe we should start our American history classes with World War 2 and the role of George C. Marshall. Compared to Marshall, most historical figures are footnotes at best.
Sixty years is not a long time. It is, unfortunately, long enough for Americans to forget a great man.
Whenever I ask people under the age of sixty, "Who was George Marshall?", I almost always get a blank stare. Rare is the young person who can identify him; rarer still is the person who knows any details of his life.
George C. Marshall was a humble man born in Uniontown, PA. He later became General of the Army and commanded our armed forces in the first true world war, that being World War 2.
After the war, President Truman appointed him Secretary of State. The European Recovery Program is known as the Marshall Plan.
Europe went to war on September 1, 1939-the same day Marshall was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff. By the end of May, 1940, the German army had routed Allied forces. British and French forces were in retreat but managed to escape annihilation in the famous Dunkirk boatlift.
The United States aided Allied forces with shipments of arms and supplies during the period 1939-1941. But our nation just did not see itself getting involved in combat.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the Selective Training and Service Act in 1940, and Congress approved the first peacetime draft. The draft came up for renewal in the summer of 1941. The U. S. House of Representatives did extend the draft, but only by a single vote.
When Marshall became Chief of Staff, the U. S. Army consisted of 200,000 poorly-trained soldiers. The draft authorized an army of 900,000 soldiers. However, the draftees were anything but willing soldiers given the isolationist mood of the country.
Then the die was cast on December 7, 1941. Japan declared war, and Germany followed suit the next day.
Winston Churchill, England’s Prime Minister, was perhaps the only man on Earth who believed that Gen. Marshall could defeat the Axis powers. Indeed, Churchill tried at every juncture to drag the United States into the war. He knew that England would eventually be defeated if we did not come to their aid.
As for the rest of the world, I doubt that anyone believed that Gen. Marshall could build a fighting army from scratch, replace the sunken Pearl Harbor fleet, and wage a global war, let alone win it. You can bet that Germany and Japan didn’t think that he could (or would).
George C. Marshall was the greatest military commander in all of history. Churchill called him the "organizer of victory" which is the kind of fitting understatement that the Brits are famous for.
In our times, Colin Powell held the titles of Army Chief of Staff and Secretary of State. I like Colin Powell. But somehow, victories against Iraq’s Republican Guards and Panama’s police force don’t quite measure up to defeating Japan and Germany.
As Secretary of State, George C. Marshall sold the world a bold new idea-the Marshall Plan. For his efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
As Secretary of State, Colin Powell sold the world a bill of goods-Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
FDR was a mediocre president happily turning America toward Socialism until a great war ended his agenda. "W" is a mediocre president without a plan of any kind. His war hasn’t been big enough to give him an agenda.
Congress today is just as inept as it was in 1941. Whereas the 1941 bunch loved isolationism, the 2007 bunch cannot muster the votes needed to close the borders.
Our modern generals don’t seem to be mad at the enemy. Given the sneak attack on the Pentagon, you would expect them to at least act indignant. No. Today’s generals focused more on turning Jessica Lynch into "G.I. Jane" than they have on leading decisive victories.
When I took the public school version of American History in 1966, my teacher never made it to the chapter on World War 2. I suspect that your history teacher was just as derelict. And that is probably why so few people know of George C. Marshall.
Going forward, maybe we should start our American history classes with World War 2 and the role of George C. Marshall. Compared to Marshall, most historical figures are footnotes at best.
Sixty years is not a long time. It is, unfortunately, long enough for Americans to forget a great man.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Re: That Hellhole Issue, Phonebook Tells the Story
Back when Martin Milner wandered along Route 66 in his Corvette, he could have predicted each town’s crime rate by simply reading the local telephone book.
If the number of clergymen outnumbered lawyers, the crime rate would be low. Conversely, if lawyers outnumbered the clergy, then the crime rate would be high. In the 1950s and 1960s, the ratio of clergy to lawyers almost perfectly correlated to a town’s lawlessness.
The ratio of clergy to lawyers painted a picture of the town’s citizens and their values. People who regularly attend church are apt to follow God’s absolute laws-the Ten Commandments for example. On the other hand, people who flock to law offices often view laws as guidelines, or even suggestions, and hire lawyers to mitigate their circumstances.
In a manner of speaking, Martin Milner could have written a "Route 66" tour guide and included a chapter titled "Judicial Hellholes" based solely on phone book surveys.
If you use this survey method today, you’ll quickly notice that lawyers advertise on phone book covers as well as in the yellow pages. Daytime television advertising could well be called the "cavalcade of trial lawyer ads."
I will say this, though: melodramatic personal injury lawyer ads do complement the soap opera milieu of afternoon programming.
The so-called "respectable" law firms advertise just as heavily. They flood trade publications with image ads. On Madison Avenue, image ads are referred to as the silk purse enigma, or the more familiar "put lipstick on the pig."
The practice of law has been a growth industry ever since the Miranda decision (1966.) To sustain that growth, every aspect of the practice of law has succumbed to relativity and compromise. If a non-lawyer read former West Virginia University basketball coach John Beilein’s contract, he’d say that the coach owed WVU $2.5 million for leaving early. In the hands of skilled attorneys, however, the contract was just a starting point for negotiations (Read: more billable hours.)
The practice of law in West Virginia is a growth industry. Our venue laws encourage growth by allowing tourist litigators to spend their workdays suing in our courtrooms while whitewater rafting or skiing on the weekends.
Innovative ways to use the courts, such as medical monitoring lawsuits, have expanded the realm of the once-stodgy definition of torts. It seems that at one time in our history-perhaps before the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer went to law school-the plaintiff actually had to prove damages. Not so now on this warming globe.
When Roane County jurors returned a $400 million verdict against natural gas companies in January, two things happened. The first was national headlines; West Virginia had finally entered the big leagues of jackpot justice. The second result was that businesses across the state realized that a billion-dollar verdict is soon to happen. After all, $400 million is now a benchmark-the four-minute mile so to speak.
Several people, and that includes a few in the natural gas industry, have told me that the verdict in Tawney et al v. Columbia Natural Resources et al was a long-overdue victory for justice for mineral owners. This sounds romantic when heard in isolation. But the future effect of Tawney is unpredictable when you read it alongside the recent WV Supreme Court of Appeals ruling that a law firm (Schrader Companion & Byrd) can claim as its fee a percentage of future royalties from a mineral lease it negotiated on behalf of its client.
To me, the court’s logic in deciding the Schrader case is just plain Stephen King-scary. The Langoliers. Now playing at a law office near you!
A major criticism of West Virginia’s judicial system has been the partisan election of the judiciary. Judges have to be selected in some way. I’d rather see judges elected than trust politicians to appoint them. And that view holds for U. S. Supreme Court justices as well.
By electing judges, especially in a partisan manner, the voting public is exercising a referendum on the judicial system. And this is West Virginia’s downfall. The voters must like the system just the way it is. Otherwise, they’d vote to change it.
Is West Virginia a judicial hellhole? You can’t always judge a book by its cover. But in this case, the phone book would suggest that it is.
If the number of clergymen outnumbered lawyers, the crime rate would be low. Conversely, if lawyers outnumbered the clergy, then the crime rate would be high. In the 1950s and 1960s, the ratio of clergy to lawyers almost perfectly correlated to a town’s lawlessness.
The ratio of clergy to lawyers painted a picture of the town’s citizens and their values. People who regularly attend church are apt to follow God’s absolute laws-the Ten Commandments for example. On the other hand, people who flock to law offices often view laws as guidelines, or even suggestions, and hire lawyers to mitigate their circumstances.
In a manner of speaking, Martin Milner could have written a "Route 66" tour guide and included a chapter titled "Judicial Hellholes" based solely on phone book surveys.
If you use this survey method today, you’ll quickly notice that lawyers advertise on phone book covers as well as in the yellow pages. Daytime television advertising could well be called the "cavalcade of trial lawyer ads."
I will say this, though: melodramatic personal injury lawyer ads do complement the soap opera milieu of afternoon programming.
The so-called "respectable" law firms advertise just as heavily. They flood trade publications with image ads. On Madison Avenue, image ads are referred to as the silk purse enigma, or the more familiar "put lipstick on the pig."
The practice of law has been a growth industry ever since the Miranda decision (1966.) To sustain that growth, every aspect of the practice of law has succumbed to relativity and compromise. If a non-lawyer read former West Virginia University basketball coach John Beilein’s contract, he’d say that the coach owed WVU $2.5 million for leaving early. In the hands of skilled attorneys, however, the contract was just a starting point for negotiations (Read: more billable hours.)
The practice of law in West Virginia is a growth industry. Our venue laws encourage growth by allowing tourist litigators to spend their workdays suing in our courtrooms while whitewater rafting or skiing on the weekends.
Innovative ways to use the courts, such as medical monitoring lawsuits, have expanded the realm of the once-stodgy definition of torts. It seems that at one time in our history-perhaps before the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer went to law school-the plaintiff actually had to prove damages. Not so now on this warming globe.
When Roane County jurors returned a $400 million verdict against natural gas companies in January, two things happened. The first was national headlines; West Virginia had finally entered the big leagues of jackpot justice. The second result was that businesses across the state realized that a billion-dollar verdict is soon to happen. After all, $400 million is now a benchmark-the four-minute mile so to speak.
Several people, and that includes a few in the natural gas industry, have told me that the verdict in Tawney et al v. Columbia Natural Resources et al was a long-overdue victory for justice for mineral owners. This sounds romantic when heard in isolation. But the future effect of Tawney is unpredictable when you read it alongside the recent WV Supreme Court of Appeals ruling that a law firm (Schrader Companion & Byrd) can claim as its fee a percentage of future royalties from a mineral lease it negotiated on behalf of its client.
To me, the court’s logic in deciding the Schrader case is just plain Stephen King-scary. The Langoliers. Now playing at a law office near you!
A major criticism of West Virginia’s judicial system has been the partisan election of the judiciary. Judges have to be selected in some way. I’d rather see judges elected than trust politicians to appoint them. And that view holds for U. S. Supreme Court justices as well.
By electing judges, especially in a partisan manner, the voting public is exercising a referendum on the judicial system. And this is West Virginia’s downfall. The voters must like the system just the way it is. Otherwise, they’d vote to change it.
Is West Virginia a judicial hellhole? You can’t always judge a book by its cover. But in this case, the phone book would suggest that it is.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Finding The Strength To Endure April's Cruelty
T. S. Eliot’s poem, "The Waste Land", begins: "April is the cruelest month." Were Mr. Eliot living today, he might criticize Americans for taking his imagery so literally. The third week of April will now be remembered for Blacksburg as well as Columbine and Oklahoma City.
While the news media has described the murders on the Virginia Tech campus as the worst such event in American history, I disagree with that assessment. No matter what else happens, nothing can be as disgusting as the murders and wounding, make that planned executions, of Amish schoolgirls in Pennsylvania last October.
Be honest. You were probably numb to the shootings on that fall day at Nickel Mines until the Virginia Tech reports recently reminded you.
In a nation gone so bizarre, one has to ask, "How can we change this behavior?"
The answer to that question might be rather simple. The killing rampages that we now accept as an everyday fact of life did not exist fifty years ago. What was it that we did then that we aren’t doing now?
This past April 19th, I attended the annual dinner of the Highland District of the Boy Scouts of America in Elkins. The district includes Barbour, Randolph, Tucker and Upshur counties. I estimated the dinner crowd at nearly 150 generous people.
When I arrived at the banquet, I told a friend, "I’ve returned to Mayberry." And I meant that sincerely. I previously worked in the Elkins area and was happy to see so many old friends and acquaintances. I also used the Mayberry reference because Elkins seemed like a safe port during the stormy weather that now accompanies the third week of April.
David C. Hardesty was the guest speaker for the evening. He spoke not as President of West Virginia University, but as a former Eagle Scout. If you have been involved in scouting, then you know that somebody’s mom volunteered to be a den mother and somebody else’s dad volunteered to be a scoutmaster. Mr. Hardesty recounted this spirit of volunteerism and community involvement in his remarks.
He also related the one-hundred-year history of the Boy Scouts. The mission of scouting has always been to teach youngsters skills. Scouting also develops values such as citizenship and personal responsibility. To "be prepared" requires much more of a young boy than any other program that I can think of.
I remember when my scoutmaster taught our troop how to build telegraph keys and wire them together. That was an amazing lesson. We marveled at being able to send clicking messages from one end of Mr. Aylestock’s basement to the other. But that was not the end of the exercise. With a telegraph key in hand, we then learned Morse code.
I know that my telegraph anecdote sounds like a quaint lesson-the kind of lesson you’d expect Andy Taylor to teach his son, Opie. But Samuel Morse revolutionized communication much more than the Internet has. To have built a telegraph system and then operated it gave me a great appreciation for the history of communication in America.
The other motto of scouting is "Do a good deed daily." Unfortunately, this generation of college students has been found by a San Diego State University study to be the most narcissistic group of its kind-ever. College professors who I know also concur with the study’s conclusion. The students, however, call their narcissism "healthy self-esteem", and they do so in a self-congratulatory manner.
Scouting, 4-H, and similar structured youth programs used to be an integral part of Plan A when it came to raising children. We as a nation no longer use Plan A. We are much too sophisticated for that homey nonsense.
We now use Plan B, or Plan C, or whatever plan it is that barely frowns on teen pregnancy or the employment of pedophiles as schoolteachers. The new plan also permits schools to spy on students with cameras rather than engage each student personally. The new plan encourages school administrators to force-feed zombie pills to hundreds of thousands of grade school kids rather than diagnose why little Johnny suffers from anxiety in the first place.
As Dr. Phil would say: "How’s that plan working?"
The answers to America’s social problems are not hidden in a cave. Nor are they known only by the Oracle at Delphi. The answers are as obvious as the noses on our faces. When Americans finally decide to look themselves in the mirror, then they will go back to Plan A.
Until then, expect more cruel months.
While the news media has described the murders on the Virginia Tech campus as the worst such event in American history, I disagree with that assessment. No matter what else happens, nothing can be as disgusting as the murders and wounding, make that planned executions, of Amish schoolgirls in Pennsylvania last October.
Be honest. You were probably numb to the shootings on that fall day at Nickel Mines until the Virginia Tech reports recently reminded you.
In a nation gone so bizarre, one has to ask, "How can we change this behavior?"
The answer to that question might be rather simple. The killing rampages that we now accept as an everyday fact of life did not exist fifty years ago. What was it that we did then that we aren’t doing now?
This past April 19th, I attended the annual dinner of the Highland District of the Boy Scouts of America in Elkins. The district includes Barbour, Randolph, Tucker and Upshur counties. I estimated the dinner crowd at nearly 150 generous people.
When I arrived at the banquet, I told a friend, "I’ve returned to Mayberry." And I meant that sincerely. I previously worked in the Elkins area and was happy to see so many old friends and acquaintances. I also used the Mayberry reference because Elkins seemed like a safe port during the stormy weather that now accompanies the third week of April.
David C. Hardesty was the guest speaker for the evening. He spoke not as President of West Virginia University, but as a former Eagle Scout. If you have been involved in scouting, then you know that somebody’s mom volunteered to be a den mother and somebody else’s dad volunteered to be a scoutmaster. Mr. Hardesty recounted this spirit of volunteerism and community involvement in his remarks.
He also related the one-hundred-year history of the Boy Scouts. The mission of scouting has always been to teach youngsters skills. Scouting also develops values such as citizenship and personal responsibility. To "be prepared" requires much more of a young boy than any other program that I can think of.
I remember when my scoutmaster taught our troop how to build telegraph keys and wire them together. That was an amazing lesson. We marveled at being able to send clicking messages from one end of Mr. Aylestock’s basement to the other. But that was not the end of the exercise. With a telegraph key in hand, we then learned Morse code.
I know that my telegraph anecdote sounds like a quaint lesson-the kind of lesson you’d expect Andy Taylor to teach his son, Opie. But Samuel Morse revolutionized communication much more than the Internet has. To have built a telegraph system and then operated it gave me a great appreciation for the history of communication in America.
The other motto of scouting is "Do a good deed daily." Unfortunately, this generation of college students has been found by a San Diego State University study to be the most narcissistic group of its kind-ever. College professors who I know also concur with the study’s conclusion. The students, however, call their narcissism "healthy self-esteem", and they do so in a self-congratulatory manner.
Scouting, 4-H, and similar structured youth programs used to be an integral part of Plan A when it came to raising children. We as a nation no longer use Plan A. We are much too sophisticated for that homey nonsense.
We now use Plan B, or Plan C, or whatever plan it is that barely frowns on teen pregnancy or the employment of pedophiles as schoolteachers. The new plan also permits schools to spy on students with cameras rather than engage each student personally. The new plan encourages school administrators to force-feed zombie pills to hundreds of thousands of grade school kids rather than diagnose why little Johnny suffers from anxiety in the first place.
As Dr. Phil would say: "How’s that plan working?"
The answers to America’s social problems are not hidden in a cave. Nor are they known only by the Oracle at Delphi. The answers are as obvious as the noses on our faces. When Americans finally decide to look themselves in the mirror, then they will go back to Plan A.
Until then, expect more cruel months.
Friday, April 6, 2007
It’s The End Of The World, And I Can’t Sleep
A few days ago, I dozed off while watching television. I woke to a widescreen scene of parched ground, which reminded me of droughts and locust plagues in Ethiopia. As for the sound, an ominous narrator was ranting about some major crisis at hand.
I was sure that I had woken to the "700 Club" and that the ominous narrator was none other than Pat Robertson.
Was I ever wrong. I was watching An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning (and whining) film about the end of the world as we know it.
All of my life, I have been told that the world is coming to an end post haste.
As a kid, I saw Godzilla, the product of atomic radiation, foretelling our ruination. Not to be outdone, Hollywood mutated every conceivable insect and animal to sell the radiated mutant story. James Arness actually polished his marksmanship fighting giant ants in Them! before he got the job of taming Dodge City.
My neighborhood grade school boasted that its basement was a suitable bomb shelter for over 100 people. That seemed adequate until the Cuban missile crisis started. Then, every family began stockpiling food and water and fixing up their basements.
Although we had erased polio and smallpox by early in my life, the threat of epidemic still gets headlines. Remember the swine flu scare? Or Legionnaires Disease? And Ebola? Now we have avian flu in our everyday fear vocabulary.
When I lived at the head of a hollow in Doddridge County, I found myself often visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses. As you may know from similar encounters, their founders previously predicted the exact date of the end of the world-a date that has long since passed.
Perhaps the most popular cartoon ever drawn has been the one featuring a man holding a sign that reads: "The End of the World Is Near." Cartoonists have had a field day captioning this one.
From The Blob to Alien and from War of the Worlds to Independence Day, Hollywood has exhausted every conceivable plot regarding extraterrestrial destruction of Earth.
Hollywood needed a new villain. Thus a star, Al Gore, was born.
Given the box office receipts for The Perfect Storm and The Day After Tomorrow, is it any wonder that Al Gore’s movie won the Oscar? Although the special effects in An Inconvenient Truth are lacking (everyone knows that glacier ice falls much faster), documentaries are not held to the same standard as are feature films.
This new Greenmania has already had an economic effect on the American economy. Ethanol receives a 51-cents-per-gallon tax credit which is paid for by general tax revenue-not at the gas pump. Experts argue both sides when it comes to answering the question of how much energy it takes to produce ethanol. Since ethanol enjoys both a tax credit and tariff protection (54¢ per gal.), we can conclude that domestic ethanol is not a competitive motor fuel in its own right.
Not tracked in the cost of ethanol production is the fact that corn prices have (at times) doubled since 2004. This increase directly affects the cost of corn flakes, meat, poultry, and soft drinks as well as other foods indirectly. Many food companies have switched from corn oil and corn syrup to cheaper substitutes that are still more expensive than corn was in the pre-ethanol era.
So then, we have already spent billions going green, and we haven’t made a dent in global warming, human-caused or otherwise.
We will be taxed billions more when Congress begins rationing carbon emission rights. West Virginians have always enjoyed low electricity rates. That will change when our coal-fired power plants have to buy emission rights.
Twenty years from now, the country will realize that the global warming scare was just another passing disaster fad-the same as dioxin and Times Beach. Unfortunately, we will have paid dearly to learn that lesson.
For the interim, Greenmania is the new religion. Human-caused global warming is its fall from grace genesis. And Al Gore is its proselytizing Elmer Gantry.
Years ago, I fell asleep watching television. I woke up about 5 am and found myself watching the "PTL Club" for the very first time. Jim Bakker and his guests sat in easy chairs and grinned religiously while Tammy Faye belted out a song.
That was really scary, and I haven’t slept soundly since.
I was sure that I had woken to the "700 Club" and that the ominous narrator was none other than Pat Robertson.
Was I ever wrong. I was watching An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning (and whining) film about the end of the world as we know it.
All of my life, I have been told that the world is coming to an end post haste.
As a kid, I saw Godzilla, the product of atomic radiation, foretelling our ruination. Not to be outdone, Hollywood mutated every conceivable insect and animal to sell the radiated mutant story. James Arness actually polished his marksmanship fighting giant ants in Them! before he got the job of taming Dodge City.
My neighborhood grade school boasted that its basement was a suitable bomb shelter for over 100 people. That seemed adequate until the Cuban missile crisis started. Then, every family began stockpiling food and water and fixing up their basements.
Although we had erased polio and smallpox by early in my life, the threat of epidemic still gets headlines. Remember the swine flu scare? Or Legionnaires Disease? And Ebola? Now we have avian flu in our everyday fear vocabulary.
When I lived at the head of a hollow in Doddridge County, I found myself often visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses. As you may know from similar encounters, their founders previously predicted the exact date of the end of the world-a date that has long since passed.
Perhaps the most popular cartoon ever drawn has been the one featuring a man holding a sign that reads: "The End of the World Is Near." Cartoonists have had a field day captioning this one.
From The Blob to Alien and from War of the Worlds to Independence Day, Hollywood has exhausted every conceivable plot regarding extraterrestrial destruction of Earth.
Hollywood needed a new villain. Thus a star, Al Gore, was born.
Given the box office receipts for The Perfect Storm and The Day After Tomorrow, is it any wonder that Al Gore’s movie won the Oscar? Although the special effects in An Inconvenient Truth are lacking (everyone knows that glacier ice falls much faster), documentaries are not held to the same standard as are feature films.
This new Greenmania has already had an economic effect on the American economy. Ethanol receives a 51-cents-per-gallon tax credit which is paid for by general tax revenue-not at the gas pump. Experts argue both sides when it comes to answering the question of how much energy it takes to produce ethanol. Since ethanol enjoys both a tax credit and tariff protection (54¢ per gal.), we can conclude that domestic ethanol is not a competitive motor fuel in its own right.
Not tracked in the cost of ethanol production is the fact that corn prices have (at times) doubled since 2004. This increase directly affects the cost of corn flakes, meat, poultry, and soft drinks as well as other foods indirectly. Many food companies have switched from corn oil and corn syrup to cheaper substitutes that are still more expensive than corn was in the pre-ethanol era.
So then, we have already spent billions going green, and we haven’t made a dent in global warming, human-caused or otherwise.
We will be taxed billions more when Congress begins rationing carbon emission rights. West Virginians have always enjoyed low electricity rates. That will change when our coal-fired power plants have to buy emission rights.
Twenty years from now, the country will realize that the global warming scare was just another passing disaster fad-the same as dioxin and Times Beach. Unfortunately, we will have paid dearly to learn that lesson.
For the interim, Greenmania is the new religion. Human-caused global warming is its fall from grace genesis. And Al Gore is its proselytizing Elmer Gantry.
Years ago, I fell asleep watching television. I woke up about 5 am and found myself watching the "PTL Club" for the very first time. Jim Bakker and his guests sat in easy chairs and grinned religiously while Tammy Faye belted out a song.
That was really scary, and I haven’t slept soundly since.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Winning Strategy: West Virginia University Proves Pay Matters
Comparison of Gross Wages:
WVU Football/Men’s Basketball Coaches to WVU College of Business and Economics Ph.D. Professors; Rounded to nearest $1,000
Head Football Coach: $1,233,000
Asst. Head F/B Coach: 210,000
Asst. Football Coaches (9); 1,334,000 (Aggregate)
Asst. Football Coaches (9); 148,000 (Average)
Dean, College of B&E: $ 202,000
Coll. Of B&E; Ph.D. (54) 108,000 (Average)
Head Basketball Coach $ 849,000
Asst. B/B Coaches (3); 110,000 (Average)
Aggregate: FB & BB Coaches (14): $3,747,000
Aggregate: Coll. Of B&E; PhD (54) $5,831,000
Sources: WV State Auditor, WVU College of Business & Economics, WVU Athletic Department (via respective websites)
----------------------------------------------------------
While in the grips of cabin fever last month, I had time to memorize all 1,223 pages of state employees’ wages.
With knowledge comes duty. So I compared West Virginia University coaches’ wages to those of WVU’s College of Business and Economics (CB&E) professors.
For comparison purposes, I limited my study of the CB&E professors to the Ph.D.s listed at www.be.wvu.edu. The football and men’s basketball assistant coaches are those listed in the 2006 coaching guides at www.msnsportsnet.com.
By now, everyone knows how much Rich Rodriguez and John Beilein earned in 2006. What I found more interesting is the payroll of their assistant coaches.
Dean Stephen Sears holds the CB&E’s top-paid position. But Dean Sears made about $8,000 less than Assistant Head Football Coach Rick Trickett. Overall, the average assistant football coach earned 37 percent more than the average Ph.D. professor. The average Ph.D. professor also earned less than the average assistant men’s basketball coach.
The payroll for 14 coaches is almost two-thirds (64 percent) of that for the CB&E’s 54 Ph.D. professors.
Coaching salaries have always been defended by the argument that football and men’s basketball are revenue sports that bring home the bacon. Left unsaid in that argument is the fact that college sports enjoy two substantial subsidies.
College sports are subsidized by tax-exempt donations to the athletic program. Ostensibly, this tax-exempt status was granted in an era when athletic scholarships were the major expense of the department. Now that Division I coaching salaries have mushroomed, Congress has asked the NCAA to justify the tax-exempt status for donations that effectively make high salaries possible.
A second subsidy is the uncompensated labor of scholarship athletes. These youngsters are indentured servants who risk permanent injury when plying their trade. While the athletic department makes money from ticket sales and television contracts, the department’s financial obligation to scholarship athletes consists mainly of room and board and an opportunity for an education.
In making fair comparisons, we need to recognize that the CB&E is also generously subsidized. If Pell grants, PROMISE scholarships, student loan subsidies and transfers from the WVU Foundation and state government stopped tomorrow, the school would easily lose more than half of it students; the professorial ranks would shrink accordingly. As well, the competition for an open professorship would drive salaries down.
In other words, without all of these subsidies, WVU’s campus would look much like it did in the 1950s. Come to think about it, that was WVU’s Golden Age. The rifle team, Sam Huff, Jerry West, three Rhodes Scholars, and a new medical center represented WVU well.
I have no clue as to what the ideal Ph.D. salary should be. Nor do I have access to the national norms for Ph.D. salaries. But my instincts tell me that when the head football coach makes more in one month than half of the CB&E professors make in one year, then Ph.D. pay scales are far too low-not the other way around.
When the football or basketball program goes awry, the old coach is unceremoniously dumped and a new coach is hired to turn the program around in three to four years. If the university’s academic standing falters, then recovery is much more complicated.
A good example of this dilemma is the College of Law’s slide to fourth-tier status in the U.S. News and World Report survey. Rather than read the scoreboard, the faculty remains in denial; they blame the magazine’s survey criteria and beg the need for remodeled classrooms.
At least coaches understand that life is a game, that the game has rules, and that competition is their friend.
In this world, you pretty much get what you pay for. WVU’s success in all of its athletic programs has happened because financial commitments have been made. If the university is to project its academic reputation in the same fashion, then financial commitments for academic salaries must be forthcoming as well.
The law school’s decline may very well be the canary in the coal mine in this regard.
WVU Football/Men’s Basketball Coaches to WVU College of Business and Economics Ph.D. Professors; Rounded to nearest $1,000
Head Football Coach: $1,233,000
Asst. Head F/B Coach: 210,000
Asst. Football Coaches (9); 1,334,000 (Aggregate)
Asst. Football Coaches (9); 148,000 (Average)
Dean, College of B&E: $ 202,000
Coll. Of B&E; Ph.D. (54) 108,000 (Average)
Head Basketball Coach $ 849,000
Asst. B/B Coaches (3); 110,000 (Average)
Aggregate: FB & BB Coaches (14): $3,747,000
Aggregate: Coll. Of B&E; PhD (54) $5,831,000
Sources: WV State Auditor, WVU College of Business & Economics, WVU Athletic Department (via respective websites)
----------------------------------------------------------
While in the grips of cabin fever last month, I had time to memorize all 1,223 pages of state employees’ wages.
With knowledge comes duty. So I compared West Virginia University coaches’ wages to those of WVU’s College of Business and Economics (CB&E) professors.
For comparison purposes, I limited my study of the CB&E professors to the Ph.D.s listed at www.be.wvu.edu. The football and men’s basketball assistant coaches are those listed in the 2006 coaching guides at www.msnsportsnet.com.
By now, everyone knows how much Rich Rodriguez and John Beilein earned in 2006. What I found more interesting is the payroll of their assistant coaches.
Dean Stephen Sears holds the CB&E’s top-paid position. But Dean Sears made about $8,000 less than Assistant Head Football Coach Rick Trickett. Overall, the average assistant football coach earned 37 percent more than the average Ph.D. professor. The average Ph.D. professor also earned less than the average assistant men’s basketball coach.
The payroll for 14 coaches is almost two-thirds (64 percent) of that for the CB&E’s 54 Ph.D. professors.
Coaching salaries have always been defended by the argument that football and men’s basketball are revenue sports that bring home the bacon. Left unsaid in that argument is the fact that college sports enjoy two substantial subsidies.
College sports are subsidized by tax-exempt donations to the athletic program. Ostensibly, this tax-exempt status was granted in an era when athletic scholarships were the major expense of the department. Now that Division I coaching salaries have mushroomed, Congress has asked the NCAA to justify the tax-exempt status for donations that effectively make high salaries possible.
A second subsidy is the uncompensated labor of scholarship athletes. These youngsters are indentured servants who risk permanent injury when plying their trade. While the athletic department makes money from ticket sales and television contracts, the department’s financial obligation to scholarship athletes consists mainly of room and board and an opportunity for an education.
In making fair comparisons, we need to recognize that the CB&E is also generously subsidized. If Pell grants, PROMISE scholarships, student loan subsidies and transfers from the WVU Foundation and state government stopped tomorrow, the school would easily lose more than half of it students; the professorial ranks would shrink accordingly. As well, the competition for an open professorship would drive salaries down.
In other words, without all of these subsidies, WVU’s campus would look much like it did in the 1950s. Come to think about it, that was WVU’s Golden Age. The rifle team, Sam Huff, Jerry West, three Rhodes Scholars, and a new medical center represented WVU well.
I have no clue as to what the ideal Ph.D. salary should be. Nor do I have access to the national norms for Ph.D. salaries. But my instincts tell me that when the head football coach makes more in one month than half of the CB&E professors make in one year, then Ph.D. pay scales are far too low-not the other way around.
When the football or basketball program goes awry, the old coach is unceremoniously dumped and a new coach is hired to turn the program around in three to four years. If the university’s academic standing falters, then recovery is much more complicated.
A good example of this dilemma is the College of Law’s slide to fourth-tier status in the U.S. News and World Report survey. Rather than read the scoreboard, the faculty remains in denial; they blame the magazine’s survey criteria and beg the need for remodeled classrooms.
At least coaches understand that life is a game, that the game has rules, and that competition is their friend.
In this world, you pretty much get what you pay for. WVU’s success in all of its athletic programs has happened because financial commitments have been made. If the university is to project its academic reputation in the same fashion, then financial commitments for academic salaries must be forthcoming as well.
The law school’s decline may very well be the canary in the coal mine in this regard.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Opinion Writing Considerations
This outline was presented to the Editorial Writing class at the Perley I. Reed School of Journalism, West Virginia University, Feb, 26, 2007.
"Some things, as Orwell wrote, are true even if The Daily Telegraph says they are true."
Christopher Hitchens ("A Man with a Score to Settle", London Sunday Times, Jan. 21, 2007)
OVERVIEW
George Orwell was a prolific writer and excellent essayist. His comments on style are to the point and his advice would be agreed with by other great writers.
STYLE:
Excerpts from "Politics and the English Language," 1946. Orwell presents five passages by five writers and criticizes them as follows:
"These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:
1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate. -- Professor Harold Laski, Essay in Freedom of Expression
2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder. -- Professor Lancelot Hogben, Interglossa
3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity? -- Essay on psychology in Politics (New York)
4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis. -- Communist pamphlet
5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens! -- Letter in Tribune
"Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision."
Basic rules of style
"… one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
"These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article."
NOTE: In addition to "Politics and the English Language," also read "Why I Write", another of Orwell’s essays.
SOPHISMS (Fallacies):
A common mistake in presenting an argument is creating a sophism. A sophism is a fallacy which may at first seem plausible.
Example from "How To Win Every Argument", by Madsen Pirie (2006):
"A US legislator recently noted that a high crime rate correlated with a high prison population, and suggested that the prisoners be released in order to cut the crime figures."
Example from "The Black Tulip", by Alexandre Dumas (Chap. 8):
Mynheer Isaac Boxtel encouraged himself with the following sophism: --
"Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested.
"I, on the contrary, am a good citizen, as I am not charged with anything in the world, as I am as free as the air of heaven.
"If, therefore, Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, -- of which there can be no doubt, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested, -- his accomplice, Cornelius van Baerle, is no less a bad citizen than himself.
"And, as I am a good citizen, and as it is the duty of every good citizen to inform against the bad ones, it is my duty to inform against Cornelius van Baerle."
NOTE: I have heard legislators say that there should be a steep tax on tobacco because smokers have health problems that non-smokers end up paying for. In other words:
All smokers have chronic health problems.
All non-smokers have either no health problems or less-costly health problems.
All non-smokers pay taxes.
All treatments for smokers’ health problems are paid for with taxes paid by non-smokers.
You would have an impossible time sorting out the exact cost of health care for each and every ailment. Cancers, diabetes, and heart attacks correlate more closely to heredity than to diet or lifestyle. There are millions of non-smokers who have heart attacks just as there are millions of non-smokers who have cancer. Visit WVU Hospital and you will find infants and toddlers being treated for cancer or having open-heart surgery.
If you agree with the smoker vs. non-smoker argument above, then you might soon advocate a special tax on sugar (adult-onset diabetes), or a special tax on fatty or fattening foods (obesity), or a special tax on tanning beds, tanning lotion and any clothing that does not cover the entire body such as swimsuits (skin cancer).
Special whiskey taxes haven’t reduced alcoholism, DUI’s or DUI-related injuries and deaths. Indeed, the USA voted in the Prohibition Era, and we know how that turned out.
In the meantime, state legislatures across the nation have spent billions of dollars of tobacco settlement money (effectively, a steep tax paid by smokers) on everything but tobacco-related healthcare.
WRITING CONSIDERATIONS
Develop a historical perspective:
Read and research your topic thoroughly lest you be caught up in the moment of popular sentiment.
(I) Human-caused global warming is a popular issue right now. But did you know that Vikings landed at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Canada in the year 1000 and never saw the temperature drop low enough to cause a frost in the two years they remained there? Leif Ericson’s journals tell us that not only did Newfoundland have a mild climate, but that forage grass for livestock was plentiful year-round. Today, the site of Ericson’s settlement (approx. 2,000 mi. NE of Morgantown) is closed to tourists 8 months of the year because of the area’s harsh weather.
(II) Thomas Jefferson is routinely criticized today because he was a slave owner. But did you know that Jefferson inoculated his slaves in 1800 with the first smallpox vaccine? Jefferson also sent the smallpox vaccine with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to inoculate Indian tribes. A century would pass before our nation began widespread smallpox vaccinations as a public health program-even though Jefferson contemplated the eradication of smallpox in his lifetime.
Develop your vocabulary:
It is important to develop a good vocabulary. It is equally important to tailor your words to fit your audience.
When I write a column for the State Journal, I keep in mind that 86% of State Journal readers have a college degree. When I write an article for the Appalachian Blacksmiths Association newsletter, I keep in mind that many of the readers aren’t college-educated and most of the ones that are have engineering degrees. Different audiences require different styles.
Each vocation and profession has its own specialized vocabulary as well as its own set of acronyms. It is imperative that you translate that specialized jargon into words that the everyday reader can understand.
And most importantly, always use active verbs that breathe life into your sentences.
Humor:
Not many writers can write humor. Some that think they can usually bomb. But good writers can and do use amusing anecdotes to lighten their criticisms.
There aren’t many writers like Dave Barry for a reason. But good writers can effectively borrow from pundits like Mark Twain or Will Rogers for a punch line. (E.g.: "Golf--a good walk spoiled." by Mark Twain)
Examples of use of humor from my columns:
"Former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (under Presidents Nixon and Ford) once addressed the Government Dependency Ratio this way. In the early 1970’s, it had become apparent that Social Security recipients would eclipse the number of workers paying into the system.
"Mr. Butz compared the situation to his days growing up on an Indiana farm. He said he overslept one frigid morning and was late in going to the barnyard to feed the cows. When he got there, two heifers were suckling each other’s udder to stave off hunger. Then he added to his anecdote that, in such situations, some milk always ends up on the ground.
"Mr. Butz, of course, was making a joke. Cows, unlike humans, are weaned from the teat." (Borrow It Forward, Jan. 19, 2007)
"And now for the pièce de résistance-the Capitol cafeteria. This eatery gave new meaning to La Cuillère Grasse (The Greasy Spoon.) In fact, if the kitchen grease had caught fire, then the Capitol would have burned to the axles before fire crews got there! Fortunately, nervous cockroaches drew attention to the fire hazard which, in turn, prompted the health department to close the cafeteria. I am told that cockroaches are sensitive to fire hazards and need no special training to alert humans that danger is at hand.
"Don’t laugh. The two prior state capitol buildings weren’t lousy with cockroaches and they each burned to the ground!" (For Government, Trailers Make Sense, Dec. 1, 2006)
Define your topic:
Writing an opinion column or editorial means you have limited space to convey your message. After you present your premise, you have to methodically and logically pursue your arguments to arrive at the conclusion. You have no grassy space to graze.
If you do go off point, you will most likely lose your reader.
One of the most common mistakes that writers make is "showing off." This happens when a writer has researched a topic at great length and then he proceeds to write paragraph after paragraph telling you about that research. Meanwhile, the reader is saying, "You’re telling me more than I need to know."
Be succinct and concise in your setup, premise, argument, and conclusion.
Be wary of bias:
Every writer writes with a bias. Men write like men, women write like women. Conservatism and liberalism are learned mainly from parents and upbringing. Geographical regions impart bias. A Louisiana Cajun’s idea of a good meal is much different than how Manhattanites dine in the Upper East Side.
Be aware of your own baggage before criticizing others.
If you were to write about a logging debate, you might quote the head of the local Sierra Club chapter for some background. That person will say that the trees shouldn’t be cut for any reason. At the least, balance the preservationists’ concerns with those of the logging industry. Their lobbyist will preen that "We are stewards of the forest and forests are renewable."
Reality is always somewhere in the middle of the debate.
In this instance, your readers will be amenable to pristine forests which provide habitat for not only Bambi but also for the endangered five-toed owl. At the same time, your readers also love to sit in front of the fireplace, solving the newspaper crossword with a #2 pencil while sipping Scotch whiskey that was aged in oak barrels.
Political bias is particularly daunting because of the desire to believe that Democrats are for the blue collar workers and Republicans are for the white collar professionals. In truth, Democrats and Republicans just want more spending money. They only differ in how they will get their hands on that money.
Actions, as well as inactions, have consequences, intended and unintended. Make your arguments based on how you view action or inaction. A good contemporary example of this is legislation raising the minimum wage.
Avoid promoting the agendas of competing lobbyists. Otherwise, there is no need for you to spend the ink. If you allow yourself to become a parrot, then you have failed as an opinion writer.
Statistics:
I majored in Economics and took two semesters of Statistics. I was also required to read How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff, a clever primer that points out how people get selective when presenting numbers.
I strongly recommend that you read How To Lie With Statistics. It will demystify the numbers games. Another good book is Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos.
Fact checking:
In Dragnet, the 1950’s television series, Sgt. Joe Friday always told the crime victim, "Just the facts, ma’am/sir." Crime victims are always hysterical and Joe Friday tried his best to sort out the facts during his investigation.
When George W. Bush was elected president, many opinion columnists wrote with near-hysteria that the number of homeless would increase by huge numbers. The facts have never supported this claim. But, many writers continued to make the claim based on subjective observations by the very people (or their trade associations) whose livelihoods depend on welfare programs for the homeless and destitute.
Think of facts this way. A policeman estimates the crowd that showed up for a public demonstration at 10,000. Without having a metered turnstile, we can never know the exact headcount. The policeman’s estimate is just that. However, such estimates are often reported as fact.
On the other hand, we know that precisely 68,918 fans attended the football game between the Univ. of Pittsburgh and Fordham University on Oct. 29, 1938. This was the turnstile number-a fact. Even so, Pitt’s publicity officer reported to the newspapers that 75,000 fans attended-a claim he later had to retract.
Today, it is common to actually misrepresent sports attendance numbers to the high side. When you hear terms such as "paid attendance" or "total attendance", know that neither number represents the actual turnstile number of fans who purchased a ticket for the game.
Facts are facts. And just as important, is the way that the facts are derived.
We know, for a fact, the exact number of voters who voted in the last election. Or do we? If you tracked down every registered voter who supposedly voted, you will find that some dead people still find a way to make their vote count. We also know that, in recounts, the recounted ballot totals are almost always different from the vote totals counted on Election Day.
And finally, remember that in our legal system, hard evidence and facts can be disallowed for various procedural reasons. This happens in both civil and criminal cases. Many cases also turn on the opinions offered by hired experts. When trying to understand our legal system, keep these two "facts" in mind as you try to make sense of the verdicts. We have a legal system that accepts opinion as fact and rules out fact by procedural technicality.
USING THE INTERNET:
The Internet is a great place to find erroneous information. You should rely on sources such as almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, government agency reports, research papers that appear in peer-reviewed journals, and the like. (Primary sources)
I was schooled to avoid even periodicals (secondary sources) such as Time and Newsweek.
Also, familiarize yourself with several web search engines. There are many specialty search engines that deliver more consistent results than Google, Yahoo, etc.
Two websites for opinion columns that I read daily are: www.slate.com and www.realclearpolitics.com
Be wary of personal attacks:
The late Ned Chilton, publisher of the Charleston Gazette, once wrote an editorial about then-Gov. Arch Moore. He titled the piece, "The Sleaze Is Back!" Those four words told me that there was no reason to read further.
Harsh, shrill writing does not appeal to mainstream readers.
More importantly, if you have to revert to using words like "sleaze", then you have failed as a wordsmith.
There oughta be a law!
Editorial writers love to endorse the most recent act passed by the legislature. A year later, they end up writing an editorial pronouncing that the very same law either
(a) went too far.
(b) didn’t go far enough.
(c) wasn’t supposed to do what it did., or
(d) has actually made the problem worse!
Nine times out of ten, legislation is a combination of knee-jerk reactions and special interest favors. That is because the average legislator is not too bright of a thinker and owes his/her job to a special interest group.
A good example of this is the ongoing comedy of errors known as "ATV safety laws." In recent years, the WV legislature has passed law after law to regulate operation of ATV’s. Every year, editorial writers praise these new laws only to write a year later that the state has set a new record for ATV fatalities and that "new laws are needed."
Be careful what you wish for when you write: There oughta be a law. You’ll regret it.
Recommended Reading:
Goldberg, Bernard: Bias
Huff, Darrel: How to Lie with Statistics
Orwell, George: Why I Write and Politics and the English Language
Paulos, John Allen: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
There are two great satires that you should read: Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726), and Erewhon, by Samuel Butler (1872). In both instances, the authors wished to criticize their present-day. Doing so openly would have earned them the wrath of the English Crown. Thus, they created sophisticated novels to do the job. You will learn a great deal about using imagery (see Orwell at the beginning) as you read these books.
A best seller in Europe, England and the USA when published in 1944, The Road To Serfdom, by Nobel Economist Frederich A. Hayek, is an excellent economics book for the non-Economist. A condensed version appeared in Reader’s Digest, and Book-of-the-Month Club featured it. The Road To Serfdom explains the limits of government and the role of the marketplace in understandable prose.
Writing Exercise:
Examine a blackboard eraser and write a description of it (100-200 words).
Then, whittle away at what you wrote. Try to cut the word count by half without sacrificing any of the description.
Repeat Step 2.
The object of the lesson is for you to learn to polish your work.
After you are satisfied with the first part of the lesson, then use the blackboard eraser as a metaphor for Martin Hall in this exercise:
You have just learned that Martin Hall is too old to be remodeled for modern classroom facilities. The Journalism School will be moving to a new building next year. Classes will no longer be taught at Martin Hall.
Recall some of the words that your professor wrote with chalk and how the eraser removed them to make room for new words.
Make your reader believe that the words were forever imprinted on the eraser, not just erased and lost for all time.
Compare how you learned from the blackboard and speculate how you will learn from PowerPoint and video presentations. I.e.: Essentially an analog age vs. a digital age comparison. (Or, will the machine evolve into an intelligent being?)
Perhaps, you can make the reader understand that the words you saw on the blackboard were, in fact, never really erased-they were just transferred to your head. Then you can compare human memory and how we learn to the future when knowledge and memory will be stored in the machine.
Develop an anecdote about how class went on in Martin Hall when a thunderstorm knocked out the power one day. Express your thoughts about the future classroom and how it will function when the electricity is off.
Try at first to develop this essay in 500-700 words. In time, you might be able to turn it into a short story.
If you need inspiration, read: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; Act V., Scene 1, by Wm. Shakespeare. (Plus Cliff Notes and other references to the scene.)
(Excerpt:) Hamlet, holding Yorick’s skull in the graveyard:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times…
(Yorick was the court jester when Hamlet was a boy and, in this scene, he reminisces about his forgotten childhood friend.)
"Some things, as Orwell wrote, are true even if The Daily Telegraph says they are true."
Christopher Hitchens ("A Man with a Score to Settle", London Sunday Times, Jan. 21, 2007)
OVERVIEW
George Orwell was a prolific writer and excellent essayist. His comments on style are to the point and his advice would be agreed with by other great writers.
STYLE:
Excerpts from "Politics and the English Language," 1946. Orwell presents five passages by five writers and criticizes them as follows:
"These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:
1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate. -- Professor Harold Laski, Essay in Freedom of Expression
2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder. -- Professor Lancelot Hogben, Interglossa
3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity? -- Essay on psychology in Politics (New York)
4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis. -- Communist pamphlet
5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens! -- Letter in Tribune
"Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision."
Basic rules of style
"… one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
"These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article."
NOTE: In addition to "Politics and the English Language," also read "Why I Write", another of Orwell’s essays.
SOPHISMS (Fallacies):
A common mistake in presenting an argument is creating a sophism. A sophism is a fallacy which may at first seem plausible.
Example from "How To Win Every Argument", by Madsen Pirie (2006):
"A US legislator recently noted that a high crime rate correlated with a high prison population, and suggested that the prisoners be released in order to cut the crime figures."
Example from "The Black Tulip", by Alexandre Dumas (Chap. 8):
Mynheer Isaac Boxtel encouraged himself with the following sophism: --
"Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested.
"I, on the contrary, am a good citizen, as I am not charged with anything in the world, as I am as free as the air of heaven.
"If, therefore, Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, -- of which there can be no doubt, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested, -- his accomplice, Cornelius van Baerle, is no less a bad citizen than himself.
"And, as I am a good citizen, and as it is the duty of every good citizen to inform against the bad ones, it is my duty to inform against Cornelius van Baerle."
NOTE: I have heard legislators say that there should be a steep tax on tobacco because smokers have health problems that non-smokers end up paying for. In other words:
All smokers have chronic health problems.
All non-smokers have either no health problems or less-costly health problems.
All non-smokers pay taxes.
All treatments for smokers’ health problems are paid for with taxes paid by non-smokers.
You would have an impossible time sorting out the exact cost of health care for each and every ailment. Cancers, diabetes, and heart attacks correlate more closely to heredity than to diet or lifestyle. There are millions of non-smokers who have heart attacks just as there are millions of non-smokers who have cancer. Visit WVU Hospital and you will find infants and toddlers being treated for cancer or having open-heart surgery.
If you agree with the smoker vs. non-smoker argument above, then you might soon advocate a special tax on sugar (adult-onset diabetes), or a special tax on fatty or fattening foods (obesity), or a special tax on tanning beds, tanning lotion and any clothing that does not cover the entire body such as swimsuits (skin cancer).
Special whiskey taxes haven’t reduced alcoholism, DUI’s or DUI-related injuries and deaths. Indeed, the USA voted in the Prohibition Era, and we know how that turned out.
In the meantime, state legislatures across the nation have spent billions of dollars of tobacco settlement money (effectively, a steep tax paid by smokers) on everything but tobacco-related healthcare.
WRITING CONSIDERATIONS
Develop a historical perspective:
Read and research your topic thoroughly lest you be caught up in the moment of popular sentiment.
(I) Human-caused global warming is a popular issue right now. But did you know that Vikings landed at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Canada in the year 1000 and never saw the temperature drop low enough to cause a frost in the two years they remained there? Leif Ericson’s journals tell us that not only did Newfoundland have a mild climate, but that forage grass for livestock was plentiful year-round. Today, the site of Ericson’s settlement (approx. 2,000 mi. NE of Morgantown) is closed to tourists 8 months of the year because of the area’s harsh weather.
(II) Thomas Jefferson is routinely criticized today because he was a slave owner. But did you know that Jefferson inoculated his slaves in 1800 with the first smallpox vaccine? Jefferson also sent the smallpox vaccine with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to inoculate Indian tribes. A century would pass before our nation began widespread smallpox vaccinations as a public health program-even though Jefferson contemplated the eradication of smallpox in his lifetime.
Develop your vocabulary:
It is important to develop a good vocabulary. It is equally important to tailor your words to fit your audience.
When I write a column for the State Journal, I keep in mind that 86% of State Journal readers have a college degree. When I write an article for the Appalachian Blacksmiths Association newsletter, I keep in mind that many of the readers aren’t college-educated and most of the ones that are have engineering degrees. Different audiences require different styles.
Each vocation and profession has its own specialized vocabulary as well as its own set of acronyms. It is imperative that you translate that specialized jargon into words that the everyday reader can understand.
And most importantly, always use active verbs that breathe life into your sentences.
Humor:
Not many writers can write humor. Some that think they can usually bomb. But good writers can and do use amusing anecdotes to lighten their criticisms.
There aren’t many writers like Dave Barry for a reason. But good writers can effectively borrow from pundits like Mark Twain or Will Rogers for a punch line. (E.g.: "Golf--a good walk spoiled." by Mark Twain)
Examples of use of humor from my columns:
"Former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (under Presidents Nixon and Ford) once addressed the Government Dependency Ratio this way. In the early 1970’s, it had become apparent that Social Security recipients would eclipse the number of workers paying into the system.
"Mr. Butz compared the situation to his days growing up on an Indiana farm. He said he overslept one frigid morning and was late in going to the barnyard to feed the cows. When he got there, two heifers were suckling each other’s udder to stave off hunger. Then he added to his anecdote that, in such situations, some milk always ends up on the ground.
"Mr. Butz, of course, was making a joke. Cows, unlike humans, are weaned from the teat." (Borrow It Forward, Jan. 19, 2007)
"And now for the pièce de résistance-the Capitol cafeteria. This eatery gave new meaning to La Cuillère Grasse (The Greasy Spoon.) In fact, if the kitchen grease had caught fire, then the Capitol would have burned to the axles before fire crews got there! Fortunately, nervous cockroaches drew attention to the fire hazard which, in turn, prompted the health department to close the cafeteria. I am told that cockroaches are sensitive to fire hazards and need no special training to alert humans that danger is at hand.
"Don’t laugh. The two prior state capitol buildings weren’t lousy with cockroaches and they each burned to the ground!" (For Government, Trailers Make Sense, Dec. 1, 2006)
Define your topic:
Writing an opinion column or editorial means you have limited space to convey your message. After you present your premise, you have to methodically and logically pursue your arguments to arrive at the conclusion. You have no grassy space to graze.
If you do go off point, you will most likely lose your reader.
One of the most common mistakes that writers make is "showing off." This happens when a writer has researched a topic at great length and then he proceeds to write paragraph after paragraph telling you about that research. Meanwhile, the reader is saying, "You’re telling me more than I need to know."
Be succinct and concise in your setup, premise, argument, and conclusion.
Be wary of bias:
Every writer writes with a bias. Men write like men, women write like women. Conservatism and liberalism are learned mainly from parents and upbringing. Geographical regions impart bias. A Louisiana Cajun’s idea of a good meal is much different than how Manhattanites dine in the Upper East Side.
Be aware of your own baggage before criticizing others.
If you were to write about a logging debate, you might quote the head of the local Sierra Club chapter for some background. That person will say that the trees shouldn’t be cut for any reason. At the least, balance the preservationists’ concerns with those of the logging industry. Their lobbyist will preen that "We are stewards of the forest and forests are renewable."
Reality is always somewhere in the middle of the debate.
In this instance, your readers will be amenable to pristine forests which provide habitat for not only Bambi but also for the endangered five-toed owl. At the same time, your readers also love to sit in front of the fireplace, solving the newspaper crossword with a #2 pencil while sipping Scotch whiskey that was aged in oak barrels.
Political bias is particularly daunting because of the desire to believe that Democrats are for the blue collar workers and Republicans are for the white collar professionals. In truth, Democrats and Republicans just want more spending money. They only differ in how they will get their hands on that money.
Actions, as well as inactions, have consequences, intended and unintended. Make your arguments based on how you view action or inaction. A good contemporary example of this is legislation raising the minimum wage.
Avoid promoting the agendas of competing lobbyists. Otherwise, there is no need for you to spend the ink. If you allow yourself to become a parrot, then you have failed as an opinion writer.
Statistics:
I majored in Economics and took two semesters of Statistics. I was also required to read How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff, a clever primer that points out how people get selective when presenting numbers.
I strongly recommend that you read How To Lie With Statistics. It will demystify the numbers games. Another good book is Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos.
Fact checking:
In Dragnet, the 1950’s television series, Sgt. Joe Friday always told the crime victim, "Just the facts, ma’am/sir." Crime victims are always hysterical and Joe Friday tried his best to sort out the facts during his investigation.
When George W. Bush was elected president, many opinion columnists wrote with near-hysteria that the number of homeless would increase by huge numbers. The facts have never supported this claim. But, many writers continued to make the claim based on subjective observations by the very people (or their trade associations) whose livelihoods depend on welfare programs for the homeless and destitute.
Think of facts this way. A policeman estimates the crowd that showed up for a public demonstration at 10,000. Without having a metered turnstile, we can never know the exact headcount. The policeman’s estimate is just that. However, such estimates are often reported as fact.
On the other hand, we know that precisely 68,918 fans attended the football game between the Univ. of Pittsburgh and Fordham University on Oct. 29, 1938. This was the turnstile number-a fact. Even so, Pitt’s publicity officer reported to the newspapers that 75,000 fans attended-a claim he later had to retract.
Today, it is common to actually misrepresent sports attendance numbers to the high side. When you hear terms such as "paid attendance" or "total attendance", know that neither number represents the actual turnstile number of fans who purchased a ticket for the game.
Facts are facts. And just as important, is the way that the facts are derived.
We know, for a fact, the exact number of voters who voted in the last election. Or do we? If you tracked down every registered voter who supposedly voted, you will find that some dead people still find a way to make their vote count. We also know that, in recounts, the recounted ballot totals are almost always different from the vote totals counted on Election Day.
And finally, remember that in our legal system, hard evidence and facts can be disallowed for various procedural reasons. This happens in both civil and criminal cases. Many cases also turn on the opinions offered by hired experts. When trying to understand our legal system, keep these two "facts" in mind as you try to make sense of the verdicts. We have a legal system that accepts opinion as fact and rules out fact by procedural technicality.
USING THE INTERNET:
The Internet is a great place to find erroneous information. You should rely on sources such as almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, government agency reports, research papers that appear in peer-reviewed journals, and the like. (Primary sources)
I was schooled to avoid even periodicals (secondary sources) such as Time and Newsweek.
Also, familiarize yourself with several web search engines. There are many specialty search engines that deliver more consistent results than Google, Yahoo, etc.
Two websites for opinion columns that I read daily are: www.slate.com and www.realclearpolitics.com
Be wary of personal attacks:
The late Ned Chilton, publisher of the Charleston Gazette, once wrote an editorial about then-Gov. Arch Moore. He titled the piece, "The Sleaze Is Back!" Those four words told me that there was no reason to read further.
Harsh, shrill writing does not appeal to mainstream readers.
More importantly, if you have to revert to using words like "sleaze", then you have failed as a wordsmith.
There oughta be a law!
Editorial writers love to endorse the most recent act passed by the legislature. A year later, they end up writing an editorial pronouncing that the very same law either
(a) went too far.
(b) didn’t go far enough.
(c) wasn’t supposed to do what it did., or
(d) has actually made the problem worse!
Nine times out of ten, legislation is a combination of knee-jerk reactions and special interest favors. That is because the average legislator is not too bright of a thinker and owes his/her job to a special interest group.
A good example of this is the ongoing comedy of errors known as "ATV safety laws." In recent years, the WV legislature has passed law after law to regulate operation of ATV’s. Every year, editorial writers praise these new laws only to write a year later that the state has set a new record for ATV fatalities and that "new laws are needed."
Be careful what you wish for when you write: There oughta be a law. You’ll regret it.
Recommended Reading:
Goldberg, Bernard: Bias
Huff, Darrel: How to Lie with Statistics
Orwell, George: Why I Write and Politics and the English Language
Paulos, John Allen: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
There are two great satires that you should read: Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726), and Erewhon, by Samuel Butler (1872). In both instances, the authors wished to criticize their present-day. Doing so openly would have earned them the wrath of the English Crown. Thus, they created sophisticated novels to do the job. You will learn a great deal about using imagery (see Orwell at the beginning) as you read these books.
A best seller in Europe, England and the USA when published in 1944, The Road To Serfdom, by Nobel Economist Frederich A. Hayek, is an excellent economics book for the non-Economist. A condensed version appeared in Reader’s Digest, and Book-of-the-Month Club featured it. The Road To Serfdom explains the limits of government and the role of the marketplace in understandable prose.
Writing Exercise:
Examine a blackboard eraser and write a description of it (100-200 words).
Then, whittle away at what you wrote. Try to cut the word count by half without sacrificing any of the description.
Repeat Step 2.
The object of the lesson is for you to learn to polish your work.
After you are satisfied with the first part of the lesson, then use the blackboard eraser as a metaphor for Martin Hall in this exercise:
You have just learned that Martin Hall is too old to be remodeled for modern classroom facilities. The Journalism School will be moving to a new building next year. Classes will no longer be taught at Martin Hall.
Recall some of the words that your professor wrote with chalk and how the eraser removed them to make room for new words.
Make your reader believe that the words were forever imprinted on the eraser, not just erased and lost for all time.
Compare how you learned from the blackboard and speculate how you will learn from PowerPoint and video presentations. I.e.: Essentially an analog age vs. a digital age comparison. (Or, will the machine evolve into an intelligent being?)
Perhaps, you can make the reader understand that the words you saw on the blackboard were, in fact, never really erased-they were just transferred to your head. Then you can compare human memory and how we learn to the future when knowledge and memory will be stored in the machine.
Develop an anecdote about how class went on in Martin Hall when a thunderstorm knocked out the power one day. Express your thoughts about the future classroom and how it will function when the electricity is off.
Try at first to develop this essay in 500-700 words. In time, you might be able to turn it into a short story.
If you need inspiration, read: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; Act V., Scene 1, by Wm. Shakespeare. (Plus Cliff Notes and other references to the scene.)
(Excerpt:) Hamlet, holding Yorick’s skull in the graveyard:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times…
(Yorick was the court jester when Hamlet was a boy and, in this scene, he reminisces about his forgotten childhood friend.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)