Comparatively Speaking

If you should ever find yourself having to teach a class on writing compare and contrast essay, we encourage you first to admonish your students that they may not use the words "better" or "worse" in their thesis statements. Of course, in everyday life, when we compare and contrast, we generally do so in order to make just such an evaluation. But let's face it, you want to avoid setting yourself up to read 30-odd (in some cases VERY odd) papers on why Lady Googoo is "better" than Casey Perry. Or vice versa.

(Huh? Yes, we're sure about the names. Why?)

In academic writing, the more interesting comparative essays compare and contrast two things in order to draw some larger conclusion about the thing(s) being compared. Thus, you might compare the use of nature imagery in sonnets by Shakespeare and, say, someone-other-than-Shakespeare in order to illustrate a thesis about the use of nature imagery in poetry. Or you might analyze, as we did today, different newspaper headlines about a major event (in this case, 9/11) in order to discuss the different journalistic approaches of different periodicals.

Comparison is a fundamental skill in a writer's arsenal. Once students master that skill, they are well on their way to mastering other critical-thinking arts.

We've Always Confused "Breaking Bad" with the Sun, Ourselves

Anonymous sent us a link to a Yahoo! News story, "Hawaii Birds Confuse Friday Night Lights with Moon."

Definitely shareworthy, if only for the first paragraph. We don't think we could possibly add to it, except to say that if migratory birds become disoriented by Friday night lights, perhaps they should confine themselves to lighter fare like "Arrested Development." We've also heard good things about "Modern Family."

GOOD NIGHT, EVERYBODY!

This Blog Is Too Damn Long

Color us disillusioned (sort of a pale purple).

In recent days, New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party has gone viral. (If you haven't yet seen his debate performance, you simply must. Click the link. We'll wait.)

. . .

Inspiring, no? Makes us want to rush back to New York just to vote for the man. We even used that clip in our writing class today. Our students have to write an essay that articulates a political platform: Discuss at least three things they think need improvement in our tarnished state, explain why each of these things merits attention, and propose solutions. Mr. McMillan provided a crystalline example:

"OK, so, what does he think is a major problem?"

"Ummm. . . .The rent is too damn high?"

"Right! And how does he convince us that this is a problem?"

"Children can't live anywhere!"

"OK! And what's his solution?"

"Lower the rent!"

(This stuff teaches itself!)

Anyway, imagine our shock and dismay upon reading Gail Collins' column yesterday. She quoted another Times reporter, who followed up with Mr. McMillan after the debate:

Sarah Maslin Nir of The Times tracked him down in Brooklyn and discovered that McMillan’s own personal rent is, he said, zero. His landlords, he added, are “like family. They don’t want me to pay any money at all. I am basically living rent free.”

So hypocrite or defender of the downtrodden? You decide.

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The Tea-Partiers Are Morons Quote of the Day

(Both quotes appear in "Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith")

First runner up, Norman Dennison, founder of the Corydon (Indiana) Tea Party: “[Global warming]’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview. . . adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”

We assume the "He" refers to God, not Rush Limbaugh--but who knows?

Grand Prize winner, Kelly Khuri, founder of the Clark County Tea Party Patriots: "Some people say I'm extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too."

We have it on good made-up authority that she followed with, "Some other people say I'm anti-semitic, but they said Hitler was anti-semitic, too. And some people say I'm an idiot, but they say Christine O'Donnell is an idiot, too!"

(Image from adeptelectronic.com)

Tomorrow: The Macarena

KABUL-Afghanistan: President Hamid Karzai and two members of a peace council struggle with the choreography for "YMCA."

Reach Out and Tap Someone

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.
"Officials Push to Bolster Law on Wiretapping"

Nobody knows who invented the telephone, but whoever did probably didn't worry about whether the government would be able to listen in on phone calls.

When we read news like the article quoted above, we start to sympathize with the Tea Party. Don't get us wrong: We want the government to have the ability to spy on. . .well, spies. We just find something slightly Stalinist in the fact that governments require any advancements in communication technology to be "tappable." If untappable phone lines are outlawed, then only outlaws will have untappable phone lines. And that's the point, isn't it? We sincerely doubt that Osama bin Laden subscribes to a "Friends and Family" plan (although we suspect Mullah Omar would be in his "Five"). We assume sophisticated terrorists know how to avoid most electronic surveillance anyway; and since the Mossad has proven adept at rigging cellphones to explode when answered, we suspect al-Qaeda and its ilk often opt to avoid the devices altogether.

We find it ironic that our government seeks to stifle an innovation that it would presumably applaud in the hands of, say, North Korean dissidents. We hate to think that Verizon engineers, when trying to improve telecommunication services, are hobbling themselves out of fear that whatever they come up with will prove resistant to government surveillance. Frankly, we wish they would just focus on eliminating dropped calls.

Seek,and Ye Shall F

Virginia Heffernan writes "The Medium," a weekly media and technology column for The New York Times Magazine. Awhile back, she did a column about Google, specifically about the algorithm the search engine uses to "guess" what you may be looking for when you begin typing in the search box. She went through the alphabet, one letter at a time, and reported on what Google's "guess" was for each one. When she typed in 'a,' the search engine returned, perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon.com; 'z' brought back Zillow.com.

Presumably, the algorithm utilizes data compiled by gazillions of user searches to extrapolate what it thinks one is most likely to type in next. We assume this program also takes into account the physical location of the searcher. Thus, when Your-Not-So-Humble-Correspondent just now typed in 'b,' he retrieved the website for BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, the public transportation agency of the San Francisco Bay Area.

A friend of ours once told us that good writers are original, and great writers steal. In that spirit, then, we got to wondering what would happen if we typed the standard journalistic questions-- who, what, when, why, where, and how--into Google's magic box. Herewith, the results:

WHO won American Idol?
WHAT is my ip address?
WHEN in Rome (2010) IMDB.com.
WHERE the Wild Things Are (2009) IMDB.com.
WHY is the sky blue?
HOW I Met Your Mother?

So, if we may draw a hasty conclusion, Google thinks Americans are a bunch of entertainment obsessed geeky kindergartners. Sounds about right.

Stuck in a Moment That They Can't Get Out Of

Perhaps you've seen the Liberty Mutual commercial: It opens with a well-dressed businesswoman stopping an oblivious pizza-delivery man from walking into traffic. A coffee shop patron observes her act of spontaneous samaritanism. We next see coffee-shop man helping a woman take a stroller off a bus, which act is observed by a man waiting at the bus stop (who, curiously, seems in no hurry to board the bus). Bus stop man then helps a man in a busy kitchen fetch some bowls down from a high shelf--his act noted by a woman who then makes a spectacular kicksave on an errant basketball before it can go bouncing into the street, where a passenger in a taxicab sees her and is, in turn, inspired to help an elderly man fetch a suitcase off a conveyor belt. This act, in turn, is noticed by. . . the same businesswoman who began the chain of goodwill in the first place! Even more disturbing, as the commercial ends, fading into the Liberty Mutual logo, we see the woman once again rescuing the pizza-delivery man.

The message? Liberty Mutual, like these people, does the responsible thing. If you insure yourself with this company, you will be protected. You will also, apparently, be trapped in some kind of infinitely recursive time trap. Call Doctor Who!