Does "No, but..." equal "No, Butt."?

Technorati Tags: Conversation civility

What, Dear Gentle Reader(s), does a tendency to preface responses with "No, but" do to a conversation?

Doesn't it raise one's hackles (whatever they are)?  After making a clear, succinct, and virtually unassailable point, what is a person to do if a respondent's first word is "No"?

Shut down?  Curl up like an armadillo, and present a shield to the world?  Hide one's head in the sand?  Turn, like a porcupine, and unleash dozens of stinging quills upon the miscreant?

Rather than engaging in cowardice or mayhem, perhaps it is possible to convince the perpetrators of this negativity that too many noes is bad for conversation, and bad for the no, too.  Spread anything too thin and it loses its value.

Let us begin a campaign, then, DGR(s), to retire the ubiquitous No and to proselytize for the use of "Yes, and, too..." or "May I offer a slightly different view?"

That way your conversing partner is at once applauded for perspicacity and invited to participate in a new intellectual adventure.

Yes.

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Brachy Chronicles 8.13.08

Should PSA tests be such a major factor in diagnosing prostate cancer?  The answer to that is a continuing discussion.

How about the effectiveness of radiation seed implants (Brachytherapy)?  Here're a couple of test results.  November, 2007, a PSA result of 4.7; August, 2008, a PSA result of 1.23--six months after brachytherapy.

We'll see.

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A Celebratory Wank

Tsk.

You're so easy.

:-)

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Brachy Chronicles 8.10.08--Whither Courage of Conviction?

Technorati Tags: Old Spice,Brachytherapy

Well, Dear Gentle Reader(s), you might wish to skip this chapterette of the Brachy Chronicles; certainly TMI might well apply.

The 6-month mark post procedure is tomorrow, August 11.  There will be a PSA taken, and results will indicate a lessening of the PSA number (4.7 prior to seed implant), which will be good-ish or an increase in the PSA number which will not be good-ish; or even a static PSA number which will be whatever-ish.

There are other indications, however, which are additional to the physical effects of the seeds, which give one pause.  Primarily, the reference is to the 70th birthday in April.  A couple of relatively benign, but unsightly, developments in the male body become more apparent as said body accumulates time.

To wit: the scrotum tends to lose elasticity, especially the ability to contract.  It is unsightly and, juxtaposed with the slight swelling of various parts of the body associated with radiation, uncomfortable.  It is also without remedy. (Well, one supposes there is some sort of plastic surgery procedure, but Puhleez!)

What to do?

After much deliberation and experimentation with various supporting accessories, the decision was made to chuck all pretense and embrace geezerhood.  Bravo seersucker suits!  White shoes!  Snowy white long sleeved shirts--with muted bow ties!  And, most important of all--TA-DA!!--Old Spice after shave!!!

What could be more perfect?

Set off to accomplish the mission, DGR(s), and you will discover the fatal flaw in the perfect solution--the $9.99 cost of a bottle of Old Spice.  Alas, geezerhood is more expensive than one supposed.

What to do?  After long deliberation, it is decided, rather reluctantly, to embrace miserhood.  One needs no further preparation than one's current existence.  Further, it is easy to change one's conviction, especially when the financial cost is beneficial.

So much for conviction. 

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Whither logos? Quo verbum?

Just about the time, Dear Gentle Reader(s), one thinks monotheism is about the most illogical of religions, our brethren come through and discombobulate our thinking.

The New York Times reports today on unrest in Kashmir.  It seems the Hindus and Muslims are at loggerheads about Hindu access to a shrine:

The crisis centers on a Hindu shrine that, according to local legend, was discovered by a Muslim shepherd more than a century ago. The cave shrine, known as Amarnath and situated at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet, contains a stalagmite of ice that Hindus consider a representation of Shiva, one of their most important gods.

According to the report, 15 have already died,  and thousands of troops have been deployed to keep the peace.

"...a stalagmite of ice..."

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July 29, 2008 Quickies

How do you suppose Monica Goodling and her cohorts at the Justice Department sleep at night, knowing that she and her ilk violated their oath to support the Constitution of the United States?

Whenever one sees a driver coming to a complete stop at an intersection with a stop sign, it's a sure indication of two possibilities:  1) that person is an above-average driver; 2) that person is within 18 months of the last time a moving violation citation was issued.  Just sayin'.

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Deja Marshall Vu, All Over Again

Technorati Tags: Marshall McLuhan,Information Acquisition,Reading,Writing

This, Dear Gentle Reader(s), from The New York Times' web site:

Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

If that doesn't sound familiar, may one refer you to Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media.  In it, during the 1960's, McLuhan discussed the "linear" and the "mosaic" as metaphors for acquiring information.  Pre-electronic age Westerners (one hedges, just in case one doesn't remember accurately) learned to process information in a linear fashion...that is, a log line of information, analogous to the moving headline around the New York Times building in Times Square.  Electronic-age Westerners (same hedge) learned to process information in bits and pieces, analogous to a mosaic.

And that's what Professor Spiro is saying.

Good ol' Marshall.  We knew he was a prophet. 

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Did you pay attention?

Dear Gentle Reader(s), when you ere enrolled in your English classes in K-12, it is hoped you learned a lesson or two about reading...especially that it is important to think  as well as to call words. 

For instance, here's a quote from the White House web site:  "...a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals..."

Now, look carefully.  What do you remember about the word horizon, DGR(s)?  What is unique about the horizon?  It never can be attained.  By definition, it always remains unreachable.

Think.

Peace.

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Whither Reading Skills?

Alas, Dear Gentle Reader(s), somewhere along the way a child (or two) didn't get the message that reading involves understanding as well as calling words.

Take, please!, the example to be found today on Page A10 of the Riverside, California's The Press-Enterprise (print edition). We have this headline: U.S. wary of Israeli strike on Iran, and this sub-headline: HIGH-RISK: The Joint Chiefs chairman an air assault on nuclear facilities could destabilize the region.

Now, DGR(s), if you're thinking, as I was, that this chairman must've lost his chair if he thinks the region is stable--after all, "could destabilize" implies stability in the first place--you'd be correct, up to a point.

Here's the point. In the story the chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, actually is quoted thusly: "This is a very unstable part of the world and I don't need it to be more unstable."

Whoa! The chairman did not say "could destabilize." He said it is "very unstable."

The headline writer at The Press-Enterprise erred; the editor in charge of overseeing the headline writer erred.

Back to school, folks.

This time pay attention to your poor beleaguered English teacher.

[And I know, DGR(s), how dangerous it is for an ex-English teacher to point out weaknesses in language skills of others. Alas, I know all too well.]

Have a good 4th!

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Context Matters

Of course, Dear Gentle Reader(s), context matters.  There really isn't any discussion about that.  Why, then, does context so often disappear from discussion?

The current brouhaha regarding General Wesley Clark's comments about Senator McCain's Vietnam war experiences is an excellent case in point.

Here is a quote from Salon.com, it's from Joan Walsh's July 1, 2008, column

Slamming Wesley Clark

I was sorry to see the Obama campaign "reject" Gen. Wesley Clark's remarks about John McCain on Face the Nation yesterday. I think the context of Clark's remarks mattered (although that's gotten lost in the right wing blogosphere's attacks on Clark). Clark was baited into his statement by host Bob Schieffer, who took issue with some earlier, milder remarks Clark had made about McCain's military service not being direct preparation for the presidency.

Here's what was said:

Schieffer: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean --

Clark: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Schieffer: Really?

Walsh goes on to wonder why Schieffer said "Really?"  We should do that, too, DGR(s).  While McCain's subsequent POW status and the treatment he endured during that time might give us some indication of his character at that moment in time, it does nothing to tell us of his decision-making processes; it tells us nothing of how much the young serviceman of the 1960's has changed into the Republican nominee of 2008.

Context. 

We should judge the presumptive presidential nominees in the context of 2008.  We should be careful about making a decision today based on what little we know of the context of various yesterdays.

We are going to have to be especially alert to what is being said in this presidential election year.

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Ouch! That Hurts!!

Technorati Tags: BBC America,Television

Dear Faithful Reader(s), not only has the dollar dropped against the British pound and the Euro, but the esteem awarded to the American public has suffered a most grievous wound at the hands of BBC America.

Where once we could watch MI-5, Life on Mars, the various Robson Greene dramas, and other quality programs featured on such anthologies as Mystery Monday, now what we get is the Brit TV equivalent of Jerry Springer and Fox Noise panels.

How's this for a line up?  "Britain's Worst Teeth," "467 pound Teenager," "My Big Breasts and Me," "Teen Transsexual," and "How Clean Is Your House?"

Have we sunk so low in the esteem of the world that we're reduced to accepting anything they throw at us?

Alas.  One can only surmise it's true.

Spread the word:  MI-5 will be on at an off hour in early July.  FLOOD BBC America with letters.  One might even buy a Ped Egg. 

Um.

No.  Not even for MI-5.

I'd rather watch PAX.

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Alas, the saddest day of this year...

Today, at 4:59 p.m. PDT, Dear Faithful Reader(s), the summer solstice occurs.  The available amount of sunlight begins its yearly retreat.  Each day a touch gloomier than the day before. 

Tristesse.

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Brachy Chronicles 10--Light in the loafers6.12.08

Technorati Tags: Brachytherapy,Prostate Cancer

Well, Dear Gentle Reader(s), here's a bit of TMI for you regarding the after effects of radiation seed implants. 

1) The abdominal muscles go unexercised for a few weeks, and that results in a slight beer gut.  Of course, it could be a brownie gut or an ice cream gut.  Who knows.

2) One person described the sensation experienced when sitting as "sitting on a golf ball."  It's somewhat true.  It's also somewhat true that the "ball" decreases in size.  I'm experiencing a good-sized marble right now.

3)  A side effect, which one hopes will fade, is the inordinate amount of methane gas produced during the digestive process.  It gives a totally new meaning to "light in the loafers."  That is, an additional, meaning.  Alas.

4)  After some 4 months, the sensation of heat has abided.  One is still "cookin'", but the flame is quite lower.

5)  One is able, still, to impart too much information.

Agape

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When Words Lose Meaning

Technorati Tags: Andrew Sullivan,Senator Clinton,2008 Campaign,Language

Dear Gentle Reader(s), one of the insufficiently discussed issues of the primary run-ups to the 2008 election is the loss of meaning for some words.

Dear, sweet Andrew Sullivan, for instance, has somehow managed to expand the meaning of sociopath from "a person suffering from psychopathic personality, whose behavior is aggressively antisocial," (Webster's New World College Dictionary, 3rd ed., Macmillan) to include Senator Clinton and her campaign staff because of his personal distaste for her.

It's absurd for Sullivan to throw words around without regard to their application. What a disappointment.

In another few years Sullivan will become a person who has lived for more than half a century. He ought to begin to think of how his work and the words he used in his work will be regarded at that time.

Sullivan is too old to be so immature.

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Heroes--Past, Present, and...? Really?!?

Technorati Tags: Senator McCain,War Hero,President of the U.S.

 

Dear Gentle Reader(s), recently there was, over at Trust, but Verify, a small step wondering about the definition of "war hero."  No one over at that modest effort has ventured an opinion, so let us see if someone here would care to offer an opinion.

The question arises from the oft-repeated phrase of "military" experience as being a qualification for the office of president of the United States.  So, one is forced to ask, in the face of three potential nominees, only one of whom has any military experience, if that experience is absolutely necessary, and, if so, why?  What does it add which is so essential?

A brief history:  President Clinton had no military experience.  President George W. Bush did.  He served in the Texas National Air Guard during the Vietnam war.  He most famously "disappeared" for several months, after flying sorties over the Gulf of Mexico.

Neither of the two leading Democratic nominee-seekers served.  Senator McCain served, but his most prominent military experience was that of a prisoner of war.  What about being a prisoner of war, aside from the emotional content which one remembers virtually all Americans felt at the time, is a requisite for the Commander-in-Chief?  As a colleague of mine at the Palm Springs "Condom Club," another story at another time, commented:  "That shows he wasn't very effective.  He got shot down."

What, then, is a war hero?  I'm thinking the grunt who followed orders.  I'm thinking the G.I. who followed orders and charged the beach on Normandy, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor, who peeled spuds to feed the troops.

What think'st thou, Dear Gentle Reader(s)? 

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Paying Paul by Pissing Off Peter

(Oh, Dear Gentle Reader(s), I feel I must apologize for the heading.  I apologize, but I really like it--alliteration is the joy of the poet, and the listener.)

Technorati Tags: Red Light Cameras,Rolling Stop,City Revenues,Tax Measures,The Los Angeles Times

 

The topic is the use of Red Light Cameras. 

The Los Angeles Times today has an interesting story about the use of red light cameras in L.A. County.  It's an interesting reading experience, all the more because it validates what many have believed--those cameras are more of an ATM for quick cash than they are for safety.

California drivers have long enjoyed the oxymoronic "rolling stop."  Mostly used for the right-on-red turn, it consists of reducing speed, keeping one's foot on the brake pedal, looking for pedestrians and other cars, seeing no potential collision, removing the foot from the brake pedal, and transferring said foot to the gas pedal and driving merrily along to the corner store for a bag of potato chips.

The red light camera is bringing this joy to a slow demise.  Here's a quote, "The city of Los Angeles issued more than 30,000 photo tickets last year at 32 camera-equipped intersections. About eight in 10 involved right turns..."  Here's the kicker:  in Los Angeles, the fine is "only" $159 for a right turn violation caught on camera.  (Only because the left-turn or straight through violation is considerably more--$381.)

Here comes the pissed off  irritated part:  The next time the city council of an L.A. county municipality using red light cameras, and the right on red option, puts a tax measure designed to support the police on a ballot, how likely is it that those 8 of ten are going to be thinking, "I've already contributed my share; I'm voting NO."

It is good to made drivers more aware of the dangers associated with lax driving habits.  It would be more efficacious, in the long run, if there were an educational program with less of an annoying factor to do the teaching.

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Words! Words! Words!*

Technorati Tags: David Brooks,Barak Obama,G.H.W. Bush,Bush Administration,Diplomacy,Foreign Policy

 

How's this, Dear Gentle Reader(s), for a headline:  "Obama Admires Bush"?

Well, since it appears in the only-slightly-less-esteemed New York Times, it immediately strikes one as implausible.  Ergo, one hies to the page and discovers that good ol' David Brooks has snookered us once again, albeit rather pleasantly.

The article is a discussion of the teapot tempest swirling around President G. W. Bush's recent speech to the Knesset of Israel in which he spoke of "appeasement" in such a manner as to suggest he was interjecting criticism of Senator Obama into a speech on foreign soil. 

Mr. Brooks relates parts of a conversation he recently had with the Senator, and in it Obama, much to Brooks' approval spoke words of admiration for the policies of President George H. W. Bush during the Desert Storm period in 1991.

The column speaks well of the Senator's understanding, as Brooks sees it, of the use of diplomacy as a tool, along with the military, to be used in the effectuation of foreign policy.

Would the current Administration had as much understanding.

 

*Intro to "Show Me" from My Fair Lady.

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Sacrifice

Technorati Tags: President George W Bush,Iraqi/Afghanistan war,Language,Sacrifice

 

Language, Dear Gentle Reader(s) is fungible, but it oughtn't be. Take, for instance, the word sacrifice. 

The sacrifice of the Mass; the sacrifice of the Cross; the sacrifice of a mother and father in raising a child; the sacrifice of a serviceman or woman in blood, limb, or life in the Iraqi war.  These are examples of sacrifice which stir the blood.  On the other hand--

We have the media announcement that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has given up/sacrificed his golf game because of the Iraqi war.  He doesn't want a mother who has sacrificed a son for her country to see "the Commander-in-Chief" playing golf.

Language.  If you're not careful with it, Dear Gentle Reader(s), it can come back and bite you on the ass.  Or at least solidify the negative impression people might have of you.

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When is a draft not a draft?

 

Technorati Tags: Iraqi/Afghanistan war,Selective Service System,Shared Sacrifice,Stop-Loss Program

Long have we argued, Dear Gentle Reader(s), for a revival of the Selective Service System.  As a matter of fact, we feel it should be universal. 

Current political leaders claim the "draft" is not necessary.  Some even go so far as to say that the current armed forces are better for not being a mixture of "Regular Army" and "U.S."  (Army service identification numbers began with RA--volunteers--or US--draftees--ours was RA--a draft dodger!)

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the Pentagon's program of "stop loss," that is, those volunteers whose enlistment is about to end are prevented from leaving the active duty military and are liable to be re-deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, reached a high of 12,235 in March of this year.  From the beginning of theIraqi/Afghanistan military operations until the end of 2007, a total of 58,300 were issued a stop loss order.

That pretty much sounds like a involuntary draft.

If we are in this struggle, we should all be in this struggle.

A universal draft is the only fair manner in which to provide troops for the effort.

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Automatic Honorific Epithets

Over at Trust, But Verify, Dear Gentle Reader(s), one might find modest efforts at saving such words as Reverend and phrases such as War Hero for those rare instances where they are, indeed, applicable.

Not to let Logorrhea go unnoticed, there is one more which might be mentioned: holiness.

The last such person to occupy the papal throne at the Vatican, in one's humble opinion, was John XXIII. All those introductions which included "His holiness, X.." since the mid-60's were more wishful thinking than fact.

Technorati Tags: Honorifics,Popes

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