September 01, 2004
Blogs win – always
Bunker Mulligan has a great post comparing Mainstream Media (MSM) to the blogosphere:
The Blogsville Gazette is written and edited by a very diverse group. Not diverse in the sense that MSM™ has of diversity. Real diversity. We have folks like Hewitt, Reynolds, Trunk, and Volokh who are lawyers. We have engineers like myself and SDB. We have teachers and soldiers. Sarah speaks about thirty languages and has lived and studied abroad, and is married to a soldier. Marc and David are linguists, and Alex is an international businessman. There are doctors with blogs. And housewives (is that term still acceptable?). Almost every country in the world is represented, and there are no electronic borders. Those are just a few I thought of without grasping for lists.
MSM™ has former politicians and journalism majors.
The Gazette has Instant Fact Checking for those who care to do a little research. We can also access all the government databases MSM™ could access, if they bothered. Misstatements of fact are dealt with quickly, and severely, in the editing room of the Gazette. Retractions follow, or discussion. Either one pulls us toward the truth. All agendae are represented, and all are challenged.
All this is true (well, almost), but I think it misses the most important feature of the blogosphere: in the computer world we
call it parallel processing. The hardest problem regarding the news is not being able to access facts that you are looking for
(though this can be hard), or even verifying them (which can also be hard), but figuring out which are important, among the
myriad details that are accessible. The blogosphere solves this problem through parallel processing. Whenever I post something,
or link to something, I am broadcasting a message: THIS IS IMPORTANT to anyone who might be listening. Any of my listeners who
agree with me are likely to repeat the message, either by linking to it, or promoting some version of their own. BUT if no one,
or few people, think it’s important, it will soon be forgotten. In this way, we create the roiling stem of a mushroom cloud
that will quickly reach the Instapundit, the Volokh Conspiracy, et al, and explode outward. Then everyone will know. Our
strength is in numbers. As of this writing, Technorati tracks 3,717,771 blogs, and doubtless there are more. With those kind
of numbers, someone will be an expert in anything, and now we have the means to tap into this expertise. And it can come from
the unlikliest sources, which no expert would predict. Who is wise? One who learns from every human being. Who would you trust more to
give you the right answer? Four million randomly chosen people, or your buddies in the newsroom who were all chosen because
the boss likes the way they think? The blogosphere has the characteristics of wise crowds, as set down by
James
Surowiecki:
1. Divesity of opinion – each person should have some private information, even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of the facts.Even if the mainstream media weren’t ingrown and biased, you would find that the blogs win – always.
2. Independence – people’s opinions are not determined by the opinions of those around them.
3. Decentralization – people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
4. Aggregation – some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into collective decision.
(By the way, I’m a software engineer by profession, and I have been and hope to be an entrepreneur. At the moment, I am working on the successor to the World Wide Web, which will do things that no one has yet imagined – as did the World Wide Web. As a side effect it will solve Steven Den Beste’s problem. I take it as a complement that Bunker Mulligan made the mistake he made.)
UDATE: Eugene Volokh makes a similar point. To paraphrase: “I’m right because I’m a certified professional.” Academia meets none of the characteristics of wise crowds. Let’s call it a dumb crowd – that might explain why they keep getting things wrong.
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Trackback from annika's journal, Unbelievable . . . Predictable Old Media:
Amazing. CNN and Larry King just broadcast the tepid beginning of Michael Steele's speech before the RNC. And (so predictable it shouldn't surprise me) when he got into the middle of his speech and started to hammer on Kerry's record,...
Trackback from Ashish's Niti, Blogosphere is an example of Spontaneous Order:
I think Blogosphere is a very good example of Spontaneous Order that F A Hayek popularized. Spontaneous Order emerges from bottom up and is not a result of top-down human design.
Comment:
You mean "compliment" with an "i."
Posted by: Grammar police at September 2, 2004 04:08 AM Permalink
September 02, 2004
Welcome, visitors from Instapundit
Welcome, visitors from Instapundit. Stay a while and look around! Go here for more.
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Clash of Worldviews
Baldoni's murderers sent a message to Italy and the West that his fellow pacifists seem incapable of understanding. It is that they don't make distinctions between infidels. They don't seek "fellow travellers" as the Communists did, when, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet state was massively funding, both openly and secretly, "peace" movements across Europe and America, as a way to subvert the Western democracies.This is the mistake that was made in Spain: the popular willingness to believe that simply by getting out of Iraq, and staying out of Iraq, Spain could be freed of trouble. But the terror attacks on Madrid last March were, as we now know, planned long before the invasion of Iraq had even started, let alone before the Spanish government had thought of contributing a small contingent to help. The Spanish were assuming the Jihadis were thinking in a Western way: "You do this or we'll do that." But that is not how they think, at all.
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Muslims Against Terror
I agree with Nelson Ascher (as usual), from the comments of this entry:
I'll only believe there's not a war of civilizations when the Muslims themselves come out and prove it to us: the burden of proof is upon them.
No doubt there are thousands of would-be Hitlers walking the streets of the US, Germany, and every other country. The difference is that none of these countries let them come to power. How long do I have to bear people saying that all religions have their extremists, or that all religions are extreme, or that all fundamentalism (which is a term that can only rightfully be applied to Christianity) is ___________ (fill in the blank)? Neither I nor any other non-Muslim can say what is the true Islam. Where are the Muslims Against Terror? Is it they who control the street, anywhere in the world?
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September 04, 2004
Blogger Gathering
Just before I left on vacation I was discovered by Israeli blogger Alisa in Wonderland, ironically by way of Brazilian blogger Nelson Ascher. When I got back, I discovered, among 500 unread emails, an invitation to an Israeli English-language blogger gathering in Ra`anana (about an hour’s drive from here). I must say that I had mixed feelings about going. There were several reasons for that, first among them that I never considered blogging to be a social activity. I am by nature an introvert, I already have far more social connections than I am able to maintain, and I am not looking to increase their number. I got into blogging because there were things I wanted to express that are best expressed in writing. Of course, I have made quite a few cyber-social connections that I value – such is the way of the world. But I decided to go, in order to meet two people: Alisa in Wonderland, and Benjamin the anti-Chomskyite. Alas, Benjamin wasn’t able to make it, but I’m glad I went.
Having made the decision to go, I looked at the dozen-or-so blogs on the list of attendees. I hadn’t heard of any of them, except for Alisa in Wonderland whom I had just discovered. It was too much, they all ran together in my head. I drove down with a muddled image and a bunch of blog names in my head. At least, when introduced, I could say, “Oh you’re so-and-so!” with some modicum of honesty. When I got there, though, I found not a dozen bloggers, but around twice that number. Oh, well.
I did get to meet Alisa, and I discovered among the bloggers two people whom I already know: Rahel and Brian Blum. I didn’t know they blogged.
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David, it was great meeting you - I am so glad that you decided to come. And it is amazing that you met two people you knew in "real life" and did not know that they were blogging!
I had the same problem you did: I was not very familiar with most of the Anglo-Israeli blogs, and I am quite an introvert myself. I do not function well in large groups. I usually try to find a couple of people I can talk to, but I am not always succesfull. In this case, though, I was certain that there must be such people there, and I was right. I am glad I went.
Posted by: Alisa at September 5, 2004 08:33 AM Permalink
September 05, 2004
Israeli English-Language Blogs
I’ve just added an Israeli English-language blogroll. I invite you to visit them. If you are an Israeli English-language blogger, and not on the list, please let me know, and I will add you.
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Well,
Posted by: Rachel Ann at September 6, 2004 10:46 PM Permalink
I'm an Israeli blogger, but I'm already on your MuNu list. However a friend of mine is also a blogger (hey, I inspired someone!) here's her URL.
http://houseofjoy.blogspot.com/
We actually live quite near each other; as in next door!
Thanks, Rachel Ann, I added you both.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at September 7, 2004 08:33 AM Permalink
School Starts
I haven’t written a major blog post for quite a while. The reason? School started September 1st. Also the baby started at her mishpahton (root: sh-p-h, day-care in someone’s home, cf. mishpaha: family). That gives me three little ones who need to be hand-held the first few days. I would really have liked to follow up quickly on my Instapundit link with a really quality post, but the demands on my time have just been too great. Stay tuned, this too will pass. I have a lot of great posts in my head, hopefully some of them will get written!
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Kind to the Cruel = Cruel to the Kind
I have seen it written in a number of places that the heart of the Right-Left divide is their views on responsibility. I would rather put it this way (from David Warren):
It is an axiom of human nature, true in all cultures at all times and places, that if you reward bad behaviour, you will get more of it. This is not rocket science, and yet in the name of "compassion" or from lesser desiderata, the fixed principle of those who are weak in heart and mind, is to go right ahead. "Liberals" I call them, but the reader may call them anything she pleases. They are the people who can always find a reason to reward bad behaviour -- invariably at the price of punishing the opposed good behaviour. This in turn leads to transvaluations of good and bad, demanding additional cartloads of "nuance".Or, as the Talmud puts it:
סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן
More colloquially translated: Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind. It is no coincidence that this sort of conservatism is associated with family values. Being a parent is one long object lesson in this truth. Any parent who shows “kindness” to his children in a way which rewards bad behavior will inevitably get more of it. Sometimes this sort of “cruelty” is the kindest thing you can do for you children. The trick to being a good parent is not in deciding “how strict” to be, but in figuring out when you must be strict, and when it is possible to be lenient. Those who shy away from this task – often on supposedly moral grounds, but actually reflecting moral cowardice – will not be doing their job. The same is true in economics and politics. In being compassionate you have to carefully consider the possibility that you are rewarding, thus encouraging, bad behavior.
UPDATE: It turns out that today is an appropriate day for this post. This is just what I mean (via Alisa in Wonderland).
UPDATE: Amritas responds with a transliteration and a “robo-translation”.
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Armed School Guards
When Israeli schoolchildren go on a field trip they have to be accompanied by an armed escort. I think the ratio is one guard for every 15 students. If the teacher has a gun permit he or she can be one of the guards, usually they ask for volunteers from among the parents to make up the rest. I never gave this policy much thought: it was just one of the many security precautions we take. But evidently it has a specific history: Ma`alot. Strange that I had to go to NRO to find out, and I got there via an Indian immigrant to San Jose, California:
On May 31, 2002, as reported by Israel National News, a terrorist threw a grenade and began shooting at a kindergarten in Shavei Shomron. Then, instead of closing in on the children, he abruptly fled the kindergarten and began shooting up the nearby neighborhood. Apparently he realized that the kindergarten was sure to have armed adults, and that he could not stay at the school long enough to make sure he actually murdered someone.
That’s why nowadays terrorists are forced to blow themselves up. It isn’t realistic to think you can do a lot of damage and get away with it.
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September 06, 2004
True Tribalism
Amritas and I both frequently talk about tribalism. A major point of difference between us (there are only two, the other is here and here, but might be resolved here) is that he invariably uses the word negatively, while I use it positively. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to talk about it at length at this time, I hope to get back to it, but I want to catch Amritas’s latest post while it’s fresh – I think it contains a resolution:
Unfortunately, they [language and culture] are often abused as iconic tools for diasporic children seeking a sense of 'identity'. kevin kutabare kusoyama and his followers never cease to remind others that they are "Golden™, not AmeriKKKan". They cling to outdated stereotypes of tribes to deny 'the white inside'. Why do they hate Europpressors so much? Because (paraphrasing Walt Kelly) they have seen the enemy, and the enemy is them.
I think that tribalism is part of human nature, like love. When we can’t express it in a healthy way, we will invariably express it in an unhealthy way, as hate. I think the key word in the paragraph above is: outdated. It is a negatively-driven tribalism informed by a lack of tribal identity – devoid of inherent content. In my opinion, the way to deal with this is not denial – I am against asceticism in general as being inhuman and likely to backlash – instead, we should seek to fill the tribal void: find your tribe! Find the tribe that for you is a positive identification. It is easy to test whether your identification is positive or negative: Does it tend to make you love or hate identities other than your own?
To those of you who greet my thesis with skepticism, I offer this parallel: Can you imagine a misogynist man or a man-hating woman in a loving relationship with a person of the opposite sex? Clearly their feelings are driven by the absence of something that their human nature requires. What is the solution to their problem? To deny that love is important? To claim that love is bad? A man who finds true love will tend to love all women, and a woman all men.
UPDATE: Amritas responds.
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I am reminded of the Snow Crash / Diamond Age world(s?), where humanity has splintered into elective groups. These are all distributed through each other, though most have some kind of central enclave that is exclusive to them. The basic point is that membership in the tribe carries with it the tribe's legal system. Beyond that there is minimal common justice, aimed at preventing inter-tribal conflict and coercion of individuals.
If you haven't read these books, I heartily recommend them - the writing is fantastic, as well as the backdrop.
Personally I doubt that such a system could be achieved starting from our current situation. However, as we move towards the Accelerando / Singularity / name-of-the-week period of human history, I see the possibility for space habitats set up for different tribes with their own laws, etc., as sovereign nations, with the difference that citizenship would be elective and ideological rather than purely geographical.
Posted by: Dominic at September 7, 2004 10:50 AM Permalink
Righteous indignation
Bjørn Stærk has an excellent post about interpreting religion. I find I am alternately amused and annoyed at people’s attempt to explain to me my religion. The problem, however, is not just their “superficial reading of the scriptures” but their inability to put down the lens of their own worldview to see the world through another’s eyes. Excerpt:
Outsiders are always tempted to explain religions in simplistic terms based on a superficial reading of the scriptures of those belief systems. Whatever else we disagree about, I'm sure we can all agree about that.My own experience with this problem comes from reading atheist criticism of Christianity. I'm an atheist myself, but I used to be Christian, and I believe I still have a good idea of what protestant Christians really believe. And what I've noticed again and again is how simplistic and unfair much criticism of Christianity is. The atheist may quote the bloodier chapters of the Old Testament, and then tell a Christian that "you believe in an evil God!" Well, no, they don't. Most Christians I've known believe in a good and compassionate God.
To a liberal Christian, atheists may quote the Bible's many scriptures against homosexuality, and to a conservative Christian scriptures about love and forgiveness, concluding that Christians have somehow misunderstood the message of their own religion. Non-believers also use these scriptures to attack Christians who claim that Christianity is compassionate and ethical. "How can you say that, when you believe in a God who ordered all witches to be killed, and commanded the Hebrews to massacre civilians?"
These critics assume that there is one correct interpretation of the Bible, an essence of Christianity, and that, lacking faith, it is possible to discern that essence through logic. If a Christian believes that his God is compassionate, he's not just wrong because that God does not exist, he's also wrong because this God, which does not exist, is nothing like the Christian believes he is.
That is absurd. Why should a non-believer have opinions about how to interpret a religion he doesn't believe in?
I can vouch for the fact that the same is true for Judaism (just change the relevant details). However, with Judaism there’s another factor at play: Judaism is part of the Christian (and Muslim) religion, i.e. these religions have their own concept of Judaism which is theologically important to them. Unfortunately, it is somewhat different from the Jewish concept of Judaism – which, of course is not itself uniform. My personal concept of Judaism, which I do not believe to be exceptional, or objectionable to the vast majority of Jews, is one of the themes of this blog. If you are new here, and this subject interests you, look around. I am one of the horse’s mouths.
This is as good a place to start as any.
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Trackback from Heretics' almanac, Is there such a thing as religious "essence?":
Those who think of banning Islam (whatever that actually means) do so because they believe that the essence of Islam through some mysterious mechanism compels some of its followers to blow up school buses, put their women in bhurkas, and neglect their ...
If you look at religions as being similar to political parties it makes sense how the "newcomers" try to explain how the "old people" lost the message and they suddenly found it.
I agree with you that it is really irritating to listen to people try and define your beliefs. I find it irritating when people within Judaism try and tell me what and how to believe, let alone folks who are not MOT.
Posted by: Jack at September 7, 2004 07:45 AM Permalink
I have no problem with people telling me about their own religion - even if they claim that it is mine. Every religion has an internal debate about what it is, and that's the way it should be. It's just ridiculous when the person is an outsider who doesn't really care.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at September 7, 2004 08:39 AM Permalink
I have had so many interactions with the evangelists that I have gotten pretty tired of listening to anything they have to say, especially about Judaism.
It has gotten to the point where I can be pretty aggressive in my response, but that is usually when they insist on trying to continue a discussion I am not interested in.
Posted by: Jack at September 7, 2004 05:31 PM Permalink
September 07, 2004
Celebrity Studded Comments
This has to be the most celebrity-studded blog-comments that I’ve ever seen: Glenn Reynolds, Steven Den Beste, and our own Pixy Misa and triticale. (You can see that I added my own comment at the end – how could I pass up the chance at such illustrious company?)
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September 08, 2004
Yanis Kanidis – Hero of Beslan
I usually don’t learn the details of terrorist acts. I usually don’t get past the headlines: such and such a place, X dead, Y wounded. I don’t have to know the tragic details. But sometimes something gets trough. I wanted to cry when I read this article, from Yediot Aharonot, translated by Allison Kaplan Sommer. Excerpt:
The hostages who escaped told how the teacher repeatedly risked his own life in order to save the children. He moved explosive devices that the terrorists had placed near the young students, and tried to prevent them from detonating others. When the first bomb exploded next to the windows of the school, parents and children began to run out. The terrorists, trying to prevent their escape, threw a grenade at them. The elderly teacher ran to the grenade to prevent it from exploding on the children. One of the terrorists shot at the teacher to try to stop him and Yanis was wounded in the shoulder – but didn’t give up. With the last of his strength, he continued to run, jumped on the grenade, covering it with his body. The grenade exploded, and the body of the teacher absorbed the explosion, protecting the children around him from injury.
How can the same world contain people like Yanis Kanidis, and his killers?
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Osama Bin Laden: James Bond Villain
I am so tired of the Left portraying Bush and his cabinet as diabolical James Bond villains.
What I find amazing is how well Osama Bin Laden does fit the bill: Evil genius trying to take over the world from a secret cave in distant Afghanistan. He even has exactly the right kind of evil charisma for to play the part. And the idea of hijacking two airplanes to destroy the World Trade Center – that’s a James Bond plot if I ever heard one.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Honestly, I’m waiting for the movie.
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21st Century Ghost Dancers
Jinnderella asks whether Islamists are modern-day Ghost Dancers. I asked that question too, back in May.
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David, Humble apologies. If you look, I gave you a hattip. :)
Posted by: jinnderella at September 11, 2004 07:16 PM Permalink
But you missed the second part of my question! I want to know if the modern Ghost Dancers can succeed, given that they have easy access to the modern eqivalent of Wovoka's multiple locomotives loaded with weapons?
Thanks, I wasn't fishing (boasting, perhaps) and I don't know if I deserve it.
Your next post makes it seem like maybe we are the Ghost Dancers:
Now like Psyche, we move carefully and cautiously in the World. We look for charms and rituals to bring the happy times back, to armor us still in the certainty that we are the favoured of the gods and we can be what we were.Posted by: David Boxenhorn at September 11, 2004 08:28 PM Permalink
September 09, 2004
The patriot and the dog
There has been a lot of talk about patriotism lately. In my opinion patriotism is a good thing – everyone should be a patriot to their own country. Patriotism is a form of tribalism, without it we are not fully human. But what exactly does it mean? Does it mean that we should support whatever our country does? Of course not! Key point: countries are not governments, countries have governments, and they can be bad ones! Can you imagine a German patriot during World War II fighting against the Nazis? Or a Russian patriot fighting the communists? I can. A while back Glenn Reynolds tied himself in knots trying to describe his relationship to the idea: My country, right or wrong:
I'm not a "my country, right or wrong," guy. But I do think that if patriotism means anything it means giving one's own country the benefit of the doubt -- of which, in the case of this war, there's not really much need for -- and that the people I was discussing in that post are doing quite the opposite and adopting a "my country -- of course it's wrong" attitude. To root for your own country's defeat is to separate yourself from its polity, to declare it not worth saving or preserving, to declare the lives of its soldiers less important than your own principles. It's not always wrong, but it's a very a drastic step, as drastic as deciding to mount a revolution, really, and yet it's often taken by superficial people for superficial -- and, as in this case, tawdry and self-serving -- reasons.I certainly agree with the content of his words, but I think that the expression, “My country right or wrong” is a simple one, and easy to defend. It means: Right or wrong, my country is MY country. It is akin to saying, “My brother right or wrong.” Though I may think that my brother is a mass murderer and should be locked up for the good of society, I still love him and will be a loyal brother to him – e.g. I won’t disown him. (And yes, you can be patriotic to two countries, just as you can have two brothers.) You can’t necessarily tell from actions whether a political dissident is a patriot or a traitor – acting out of love or hate. But I grew up in the US, spent my first 25 years there, and I know that many people object to its actions because they hate America – not the other way around.
Is John F. Kerry one of these people? I don’t think so. Rather, he seems to me utterly lacking in character. His opinions are whatever is most politically advantageous at the time. (In stark contrast to the President who, agree with them or not, has the courage of his convictions.) Nevertheless, this does have bearing on patriotism. Loyalty (to a country or a person) doesn’t mean putting their interests before your own, but it does mean not pursuing your interests at their expense. Kerry might well be guilty of this. Which brings to mind a passage from the Talmud, describing a time of calamity:
בית ועד יהיה לזנות
והגליל יחרב והגבלן ישום
ואנשי הגבול יסובבו מעיר לעיר ולא יחוננו
וחכמות סופרים תסרח
ויראי חטא ימאסו
והאמת תהא נעדרת
נערים פני זקנים ילבינו
זקנים יעמדו מפני קטנים
בן מנבל אב
בת קמה באמה כלה בחמותה
אויבי איש אנשי ביתו
פני הדור כפני הכלב
הבן אינו מתבייש מאביו
ועל מה יש לנו להשען על אבינו שבשמים
Beyt va`ad yihye liznut
V’hagalil yeherev vhagavlan yishom
V’anshey hagvul y’sov’vu me`ir la`ir vlo’ y’honanu
V’hokhmot sofrim tisrah
V’yir’ey het yim’asu
V’ha’emet t’he ne`ederet
N`arim p’ney z’qenim yalbinu
Z’qenim ya`amdu mipney q’tanim
Ben m’nabel av
Bat qama b’imah kala bahamotah
Oyvey ish anshey beyto
P’ney hador kifney hakelev
Haben eyno mitbayesh me’aviv
V`al ma yesh lanu l’hisha`en
`Al avinu shebashamayim
The house of council will be for prostitution
And the Galilee will be destroyed and the outlaw will breathe easily
And people from the borders will wander from city to city and won’t settle down
And the wisdom of scribes will putrefy
And those who fear sin will be become disgusting
And the truth will be not found
Youths will insult the faces of elders
Elders will stand for the sake of youths
Son will deride father
Daughter will rise up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law
A man’s enemies will be members of his household
The face of the generation will be like the face of the dog
Sons not embarrassed in front of fathers
And on what do we have to lean?
On our father who is in heaven
Mishna Sota 9:16
What is the meaning of, “The face of the generation will be like the face of the dog”? It is explained that this refers to the leaders, who will lead the way a dog leads his master: he runs in the direction he thinks his master will go, then looks back to see if he is following.
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Sarah in France
Now I know why Sarah feels the way she does about France. It is really quite shocking:
They would pretend not to understand me, even with the simplest sentences. (How hard is it to figure out that I'm asking for stamps when I'm in the post office?) Our teachers would praise the Taiwanese and Japanese speakers and then cringe when the Americans spoke and say things like, "Oh, you really need to get rid of that horrible American accent." Some landlords even banned English in the home, even when three English speakers lived together. Once when four of us Americans were walking down the street, a French person started yelling at us for speaking English to each other, telling us to go home if we wanted to speak English.
I have to smirk, though, at a memory of my own that comes to mind. In Israel the situation is quite different. Israelis love to practice their English on you. It is a big barrier to learning the language, especially when their English is better than your Hebrew. One of my tricks when a first came to Israel was to pretend not to understand them. Eventually they’d switch to Hebrew.
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So that's what I have to do!
Israeli's also love to help you out if you are trying to speak Hebrew. They will correct you if you are wrong, but they try and do it nicely.What is funny though is when I speak (poorly) in Hebrew to them, and they speak (much better than I speak Hebrew, you are right) English to me. It is rather comic.
Posted by: Rachel Ann at September 9, 2004 02:44 PM Permalink
David, the stories about France get worse and worse: how I lived in a bad part of town and faced vicious attackers on numerous occasions, how my landlord told me that she'd wanted a Brit but had gotten stuck with an American, how I wasn't allowed to have visitors or use the telephone and had to pay to keep items in her refrigerator, how our study abroad coordinator told us up front that she hated Americans and hated our country, how our teachers ridiculed us, how people would throw trash at us if they overheard us speaking English, ad nauseum.
When I came home and gave up on French, I started on Swedish. When I lived there, the Swedes were overjoyed that someone would try to learn their language, and they were very helpful and encouraging. I have also found that the Germans praise my limited ability in German too...which is not surprising: since most military families don't make the effort, it's exciting when one does.
Posted by: Sarah at September 9, 2004 03:36 PM Permalink
Well, I'm not so fond of the French, but my dislike is more directed towards the Quebecers here in Canada. I don't like them, and I assure you, they don't like me either.
Posted by: celestial blue at September 9, 2004 08:44 PM Permalink
Very few people have been as overjoyed to hear me stumble over a couple of words in their language as Israelis. Simply saying "toda raba" to waitresses was enough to ensure dazzling smiles and double helpings, and when by the end of my solitary week there I could puzzle out simple orders from the menu, they were practically asking me to marry them! I'm going back just as soon as I can wangle it (I work for an Israeli company).
I didn't have any horror stories about France, but my French carries an Italian accent, so I would hardly have experienced the same vicious attitudes that Sarah did.
However, I can say that Germans are very reluctant to speak German to foreigners - it took me six months or so before I could persuade people not to switch into English immediately... Admittedly, the other foreigners there did set a particularly bad example!
Posted by: Dominic at September 13, 2004 05:49 PM Permalink
September 10, 2004
Forgery Forgery Forgery
From CBS news:
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" — as evidence indicating forgery.Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.
"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.
In the Wednesday broadcast, 60 Minutes said the purported memos were "documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file. The program says it consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.
"As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 Minutes report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts," CBS News said in a statement.
This document expert (meaning me – full disclosure: I have no special expertise in this subject) is old enough not only to remember typewriters, but to have actually done quite a lot of work on them. He never saw a typewriter that could type a smaller, raised superscript, and doubts that one was standard issue in the US army during the Vietnam War.
He is also quite familiar with the automatic superscripting of “th” after numbers, e.g 10th – he once tried to get Word to not do it, and failed.
UPDATE: Don’t miss this great link on how blogging works (via Daily Pundit).
UPDATE: I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the document (via Amritas, also here). Doesn’t everyone know that typewriters produce equal-spaced fonts?! This document is what we call a proportional-spaced font. If you don’t believe me, take a look a the word “will” see how the “w” takes up as much horizontal space as the rest of the word combined?
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The superscripting sounds fishy to me, too, although they do claim that there were very expensive typewriters that could do this back then (but you have to wonder how likely it is that an air force officer would use one on a regular basis).
The proportional spacing was fairly standard in high-end IBM typewriters, though. I even used some of those in the early 70s.
Posted by: Leif at September 10, 2004 07:40 PM Permalink
It's impossible for a typewriter to do superscript automatically because it doesnt have a brain like a word processor. It cant analyze what youve typed and then decide to change the appearance of the letters after they're typed. Even the most advanced typewriter couldnt do that in 72 or 73. Killian would have had to manually change the settings on the typewriter just to do the superscript - which seems odd and a lot of trouble to go through, given the the informal nature of the memo.
By the way, i'm trying to start an avalanche of email to pressure CBS to fire Rather. Go to my site, if you wanna participate.
Posted by: annika at September 10, 2004 11:37 PM Permalink
IDM Selectrics can and do change fonts and do superscripts. They are still in use today and the best known example is the White House where quality counts. They even had correcting ribbon and variable fonts were available.
See:
http://www.mytypewriter.com/category.html?UCIDs=1272517I doubt very much whether they would have been available to typing pools back then but could have been. The telling point for me is the lack of identifiers anywhere such as originator's reference number, filing number or memo series number which would have been standard back then.
Posted by: ExpatEgghead at September 12, 2004 02:13 PM Permalink
September 12, 2004
9-11
I really wanted to write a 9-11 post on 9-11, but events conspired in my off-line life to keep me from it. This is my first 9-11 as a blogger, so I thought it would be a good time to tell my story, but since it’s already three years old, I thought, it won’t be much staler next year, maybe I should wait till then? Then I read Sarah’s post:
I went to see what she had to say on that momentous date. Nothing. I tried all of her links, and no one had even mentioned September 11th. I tried all of their links, racing through the internet trying to find anyone in their circle of "liberal" friends who thought that this date still held significance. I found one person who said that he had written a post about September 11th but then deleted it because "it is important to remember the events of 9/11, but let's not dwell on them."
I don’t want to be one of them – someone who doesn’t admit to the importance of this day. But in a way I am: 9-11, horrific as it was, was not a world-changing event for me. You see, living in Israel means experiencing a slow-motion 9-11, all the time, and it’s been this way for the last hundred years. Along with the sheer horror, the James-Bond-turned-disaster-movie come to life, was the realization that, for the first time, we Israelis were not alone in our misery.
We often hear about America’s “vacation from history” – that ended on 9-11. In Israel we had a similar vacation, we called it: Oslo. To say that I was skeptical of Oslo from the first would be an understatement, but even so I was swept up in the euphoria that followed the Oslo accords. For a diversity-lover like me it was a dream too sweet to turn away from. When everyone else faulted my logic, even I preferred to doubt it.
I saw the vision clearly: Not merely two nations living side-by-side in peace, but two nations intertwined: A checkerboard country, each nation interacting in peace with the other, nevertheless maintaining its own social institutions, pursuing its own destiny. But all this overlooked one small thing: Our partner-in-peace was a totalitarian, terrorist-supporting dictatorship. Their vision was nothing like mine. Not only did the incidence of terrorism not decrease, it actually increased. And that was just the ghastly tip of the iceberg. All kinds of crime increased dramatically. Car thefts, for example went up 500%, and burglary, once rare, became common. The Palestinian areas became safe havens for crime – the cost of theft plummeted. Where once the theft itself was 10% of the battle, the other 90% being safely selling the stolen goods, now the theft was all the battle, and by the unavoidable laws of economics, when costs tumbled, demand skyrocketed.
None of this led to disillusionment among much of the public. The problem: we weren’t doing enough! So, like an alcoholic curing his hangover with another drink, we had round after round of agreements. Each time we gave the Palestinians something new, and asked for the same old thing in return: the end of terror. The Palestinians probably thought they were on to something good (for them). What they didn’t know: That we would hit bottom.
It came, when our Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, in one last act of desperation, breaking all the “red lines” that he himself declared, and that the Israeli public believed in, tried to give them everything they asked for, in return for ending terror. And they refused. Why did they refuse? Because of one small detail that Barak, to his credit, refused to relinquish: A clear declaration by the Palestinians of an end to hostilities. An agreement that there would be no more demands. Arafat told Clinton: "If I sign this, the next time you will see me it will be my funeral." Instead, Arafat stared the Oslo War, or as he dubbed it: the el-Aqsa Intifada. (The pretense was that the Israelis were about to destroy the el-Aqsa Mosque.)
In response, we fully expected the world to rush to our defense, if not in deeds, then at least in words. The facts were clear. The Palestinians walked out, they started a war, they didn’t want peace. Nothing of the sort occurred. The Europeans found excuses, even the Americans found excuses, and always there was the inexorable demand for evenhandedness. That was Israel’s 9-11. One year later was America’s 9-11.
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David, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that in 2000 I was a stupid kid who was only beginning to realize the impact the US has on the rest of the world. I'm sorry that even on 9/11/01, I didn't understand the magnitude of what had happened (it wasn't until last year that I really began to understand.) I'm sorry that no one rushed to your defense after Oslo. I'm sorry that, still today, few people rush to your defense. And I'm sorry that it's only been within the last year that I've come to appreciate Israel and her dilemma. But I'm here now, I guess is all I can say. I'm here now.
Posted by: Sarah at September 12, 2004 12:14 PM Permalink
Sarah, I'm touched. I wasn't asking for an apology. Nor do I think you need to now. I don't think you, personally, were guilty of anything in particular.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at September 12, 2004 12:41 PM Permalink