[Peace-discuss] Eyes Only: AWARE. In re AOTA

[E. Wayne Johnson]

In days gone by when a clever word like oxymoron would come along
we would go around hunting them down.  I recall that "military intelligence"
and "social science" hung in the Hall of Oxymorons along with other 
riskless investments.

One of my neighbors is trying to decide if the stock market is finding 
support
at 8500 or if this is the "dead cat bounce".

Twain also wrote on the dangers of extrapolation...
"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi 
has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average 
of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm 
person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic 
Silurian Period,' just a million years ago next November, the Lower 
Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand 
miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. 
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and 
forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and 
three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their 
streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor 
and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about 
science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a 
trifling investment of fact. "

The quote about the products of liars and statisticians is an 
interesting one, for which Twain did mark Disraeli as the originator, 
whereas Disraeli's biographers can't seem to find any evidence that he 
actually ever said or wrote it.  Much like some of the quotations that 
our boys attribute to their mother attesting to various promises, 
usually involving embroidery more than fiction.


C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Damn right -- I hadn't heard of SLC's remark and so used to tell my 
> students just to avoid intensifiers...
>
> I think our viewership probably amounts to not much more than twain 
> (and they've probably met).
>
> Is the remark by Twain on statisticians, "There are three kinds of 
> lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"?  (I gather he attributed it 
> to Disraeli, a proper politician.)
>
> Auden riffed on the theme in his advice to students, the wonderful 
> "Under Which Lyre - A Reactionary Tract for the Times":
>
>     "Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
>     Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
>         Nor with compliance
>     Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
>     With statisticians nor commit
>         A social science."
>
> Vox clemens in deserto, no doubt. --CGE
>
>
> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>> Carl, your Chinese is accurate and displays nicely on my screen here.
>> Reminds me very much of the remark that Clemens made about the use of 
>> intensifiers. /"Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write 
>> "very";
>> your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should 
>> be.// /"
>> Since Chinese uses some implicit shorthand it is better to allow a 
>> explanation of meaning rather than to give a word for word translation.
>>
>> I am also reminded of the remark by Twain about Statisticians,
>> but choose to accept with due measure of clemency that
>> the smallest unit of accretion in viewership is exponential.
>>
>> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>> Some thoughts about "AWARE on the Air," as it has developed in 
>>> recent weeks:
>>>
>>> (N.B.: these notes are meant only for the Made Members of AWARE 
>>> [hence the Eyes Only designation] -- altho' Wayne may remind us that 
>>> Māde [妈的] is the  most common Chinese vulgar curse word...)
>>>
>>> As the audience for AOTA increases exponentially, we need to think 
>>> about how we do it. In what my shrink friends call "regression in 
>>> defense of the ego," I propose a model from my intellectual infancy: 
>>> the graduate seminar.
>>>
>>> It has happened (undoubtedly under the influence of the redoubtable 
>>> gods of the air) that people have been bringing quite brilliant 
>>> comments to the Tuesday tapings of AOTA. Linda, Ron and Wayne did 
>>> that today, and Karen and I added our animadversions.
>>>
>>> I suggest that we formalize this arrangement just a bit, in order 
>>> that each comment get its proper consideration; that after each 
>>> comment the others present reflect on it seriatim (with of course 
>>> the presenter given time to respond if s/he wishes); and that each 
>>> discussion occupy a proportionate amount of the time available, 
>>> after the initial summary of recent and upcoming local events. There 
>>> is of course no reason to be illiberal in this arrangement.
>>>
>>> All AWAREists are encouraged to come and participate, with the 
>>> understanding that you will get a (roughly) equal share of the time, 
>>> according to the principle of "from each of you according to your 
>>> means, to each of you according to your needs" -- subject only to 
>>> the "conditions of concision" imposed by that fell sergeant, Time.
>>>
>>> It's only an hour's program.  Come join us: tell the truth, and 
>>> shame the devil.
>>>
>>> Yr. obdt. servt., CGE
>
>
>
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