THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/26/07 -- Vol. 26, No. 17, Whole Number 1464
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Tell it All in One Page (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A Die-off of Tongues (Part 3) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Correction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Languages (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
Languages, MICHAEL CLAYTON, and Early Morning Discussions
(letter of comment by Ernest Lilley)
Plato and Heinlein, and MICHAEL CLAYTON and the Titanic
(letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
Karl Popper (letter of comment by Victoria Fineberg)
Early Mornings, Languages, WINDTALKERS, and Professor
Challenger (letter of comment by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (-30-: THE COLLAPSE OF THE GREAT
AMERICAN NEWSPAPER and THE KING'S ENGLISH)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Tell it All in One Page (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Big ideas do not necessarily take up a big space. Einstein's
most famous equation is the simple
e=mc^2
I am floored by the simple fact
exp(i*A)=cos(A)+i*sin(A)
The Edge Magazine has ninety well-known deep thinkers' answers to
the question "What is your formula? Your equation? Your
algorithm?" Each is limited to a single page. Basically it is a
single viewgraph. Take a look at what they got. (P.S. One of the
contributors happens to be the wife of a friend. I notice that
Dean Kamen picked a special case of the same formula I picked
above.)
http://tinyurl.com/2y7xep
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Die-off of Tongues (Part 3) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have been talking the last couple of weeks about how some
languages are dying off and about the efforts of some people to
keep these languages alive. In the last century, languages that
have been saved from extinction have included Hawaiian, Irish
Gaelic, Hebrew, and Yiddish. However, there are two very
different situations when it comes to saving dying languages. In
one case the languages are saved from within and in the other
they are saved from without. Hebrew was brought back by a large
number of people who were committed to the use of the language in
their daily lives. Essentially it was the chosen to be the first
language of the State of Israel. People who intended to use the
language chose it. When enough people became committed, the
continuance of the language was assured. It also helped that
Jewish prayer books were written in Hebrew. The situation was
very similar with Hawaiian, Gaelic, and Yiddish. Commitment made
saving these languages a lot easier. Even with a language like
Yiddish for which there was a whole proud literature, how much of
the non-Yiddish-speaking world is really taking advantage of that
literature? Yiddish literature is still of very selective
appeal. It is the everyday users of a language who have to save
it, generally not well-meaning outsiders.
On the other hand there are the languages that have to be saved
from without. One argument for saving dying languages is like
the one for the Banawas of the Amazon Rain Forests. These are
people who "make curare, a fast-acting and deadly strychnine-
based poison used on blowgun darts and arrows. The ability to
make this poison is the result of centuries of knowledge-
gathering and experimentation. It is encoded in the Banawas'
language in the terms for plants and procedures that are in
danger of being lost, as the last seventy remaining Banawa
speakers gradually switch to Portuguese." This is the argument
provided by Professor Daniel L. Everett of the Department of
Linguistics of the University of Manchester. I have no idea how
Everett would suggest getting the Banawas to hold onto a language
that is no longer really useful to them. I assume it is not
greatly useful or they would be using it. I am sure Everett
could record the language on audiotape. If it has a written
version he could learn that. But how long can he keep a language
on what is essentially life support?
If the Banawas are not committed to saving the language then
studying the language and recording it will make it only a
studied and recorded dead language. If the Banawas do not agree
that it represents their identity and culture or are not willing
to save that identity and culture, then the goal of saving the
language, no matter how laudable that goal is, is doomed to
failure. The best Everett can hope to do is to put the language
in cold storage and hope that future generations of Banawa decide
to resurrect it, an unlikely prospect. I won't say that nobody
will really suffer, because presumably the decreasing circle of
speakers might be sorry to see the language disappear. Everett
says "For many people, like these Amazonian groups, the loss of
language brings loss of identity and sense of community, loss of
traditional spirituality, and even loss of the will to live."
Nobody is saying that this loss is a good thing, it is bad for a
limited set of people. But there are many issues that as
potently devalue lives and it is not clear that efforts to save a
language without providing a population of volunteer speakers
will do much to avert the sad situation.
The outer world presumably knows how to synthesize curare if they
need it. The threat of lost knowledge is not a particularly
frightening prospect. Few issues are so close to being
victimless. There is always the risk that there is something
else really useful or enriching may be lost. But then there
might be something threatening that will go undiscovered. There
is always the question of what was on the road we did not take.
It is easy to say that of course languages should be preserved.
However if one is willing to put in effort to do good in the
world, preserving languages that few people have an interest in
may not actually be the best use of that effort.
To read more about Everett's work, see
http://www.yourdictionary.com/elr/everett.html
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Correction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
And speaking of language, mine was a little loose last week.
People are studying Klingon academically, but I know of no cases
where people are actually getting Ph.D.s in it yet. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Languages (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In his article on languages in the 10/19/07 issue of the MT VOID,
Mark wrote, "I almost think that if a language can be eliminated
it should be. Misunderstanding between people due to language
barriers I consider a serious problem." [-mrl]
Fred Lerner responds, "At a lecture on language loss and
preservation that I attended several years ago, the speaker
offered this observation: 'Think how much more peaceful the former
Yugoslavia would be if the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians all spoke
the same language.'" [-fl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Languages, MICHAEL CLAYTON, and Early Morning Discussions
(letter of comment by Ernest Lilley)
In response to the 10/19/07 issue of the MT VOID, Ernest Lilley
writes:
Dear El Presidente,
Another nice issue. I especially like the stuff about [many
tongues versus one] and the good movies that Cloony does.
Re early morning discussions with Evelyn: you're welcome to come
sleep on the couch when she throws you out ... and we already know
you'd rather be proud than happy. [-el]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Plato and Heinlein, and MICHAEL CLAYTON and the Titanic
(letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Plato's REPUBLIC in the
10/19/07 issue of the MT VOID, Taras Wolansky writes, "It might be
an interesting exercise, to figure out the ways in which Heinlein's
BEYOND THIS HORIZON is a response to BRAVE NEW WORLD: a eugenic
utopia without coercion." [-tw]
Evelyn responds, "I'm not sure about BEYOND THIS HORIZON, but
Plato's influence has been noted in Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS."
[-ecl]
In response to Mark's review of MICHAEL CLAYTON in the same issue,
Taras continues:
The review of the movie, MICHAEL CLAYTON, got me thinking about
the way Hollywood creates a counter-factual (but consistent?)
worldview. Just the other day--it may have been at Capclave--I
heard somebody refer to the Titanic as an example of how corrupt
rich people buy their way out of everything.
In the real world, the rich people on the Titanic behaved very
well: for example, the richest man in the world put his pregnant
wife on a lifeboat and went back to the first class lounge to
wait for the icy waters. But in the Hollywood movie, the
*fictitious* rich guy lies and cheats his way onto a lifeboat.
In the real world, there really were villains who lied and
cheated their way onto lifeboats: a gang of swindlers (who went
on to fleece some of the survivors). Yet in Hollywood World,
these are precisely the kinds of people who are the heroes of
movie after movie after movie.
In the real world, for at least half a century, most interracial
crime has been black on white. But in Hollywood it's still 1947,
and will always be 1947, as far as race relations are concerned.
Does it matter that Hollywood disseminates an ersatz worldview?
It suddenly occurred to me, as I looked back over what I just
wrote, that I had delineated exactly the counter-factual views--
about wealth and race--behind the Duke "rape" case. And if
experience is any guide there is still a large population of Duke
rape "truthers" out there, who believe the case was real but
covered up by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, another very common
Hollywood trope. [-tw]
Mark responds:
I have never actually heard how honesty correlated to wealth
either on the Titanic or in the world in general.
Is there a political bias in the media? I have heard arguments
that there is a liberal bias and arguments that there is a
conservative bias. Actually it seems to me that it is relatively
easy to tell objectively. I developed my own metric that allows
for actual numerical results. I won't tell my conclusions here,
but I will tell my method and let people decide for themselves.
(This has previously been fodder for an editorial.)
My technique is to look at conflicts presented dramatically.
Dramas set up conflicts and frequently tell the viewer whom to
side with. My technique is to count conflicts that cross gender
and/or racial lines. If it is a male conflicting with a female
which one is in the right. If the man is presented as right and
the woman as wrong, count that as one point for male bias. If
the woman is right count it as one point for female bias.
Similarly if the conflict is a white person against a non-white
person tally that. Once you get some data you can draw your own
conclusions. [-mrl]
And Evelyn chimes in:
On the Titanic, the situation was more that the rich people who
had bought first-class tickets were generally treated better than
the poorer people who had bought second- or third-class tickets,
not that the richer people, ex post facto, bought seats on the
lifeboat. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Karl Popper (letter of comment by Victoria Fineberg)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Karl Popper in the 10/19/07
issue of the MT VOID, Victoria Fineberg writes:
Your review of Karl Popper was a nice surprise. I have just
finished BLACK SWAN[: THE IMPACT THE THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE] by
Nassim Taleb, and he has many positive references to Popper. That
is in stark contract with severe criticism of other philosophers,
economists, and lots of others.
Have you read any Taleb's books? BLACK SWAN came out this year;
before that he had FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS and a technical book on
trading. If you have not heard of Taleb, one way to meet him is a
podcast:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/04/taleb_on_black.html.
I am very envious that you have so much time for reading and
writing. You and Mark really got it right. [-vf]
Evelyn replies, "I have not read Taleb, but I notice our library
has BLACK SWAN, so I will check it out. His other book gets mixed
reviews, but if I like BLACK SWAN, I may get it through
inter-library loan. And, yes, being able to take early retirement
was definitely 'getting it right.'" [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Early Mornings, Languages, WINDTALKERS, and Professor
Challenger (letter of comment by John Purcell)
In response to the 10/19/07 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
writes:
I can sort of identify with you and Evelyn with those early-
morning philosophical discussions. My wife and I don't start our
days with heady topics; typically, our nights end with them, and
usually on a weekend. It is not uncommon for Valerie and I to
solve the world's problems at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Too
bad world leaders aren't around to take notes; some of our
solutions--especially hers--are pretty darned good.
Ever since I earned my Masters in Applied Linguistics at Iowa
State University, articles about language have interested me,
especially since I now teach college English. Some times our
class discussions veer off onto the topic of how languages
evolve, and I like to point out that English can be described as
a living language: one that is dynamic, adding and dropping
words, changing pronunciations, meanings both denotative and
connotative, syntactic structure, and so on. Because of its
flexibility, it is not surprising that English has become such a
dominant and vital language in world commerce and communication,
and this has nothing to do politically with any American agenda.
Well, to be honest, there may be a hidden agenda, but I don't
think so. At least I don't see it. After all, it is hidden.
The dying off of languages is indeed sad, but it is a part of how
spoken languages evolve. As long as there are living speakers of
these languages and dialects, they will be around and hopefully
someone someday will make an effort to get preserve these pockets
of little-known languages. But it is all a part of the process
of change: some languages slowly die off as their speakers die,
and other languages become assimilated into others, much as
pidgins become creoles as children grow up learning this new
combo-language as their primary language. This is all normal
growth and decay, sad to say. I would love to see Native
American languages preserved, as well as others from around the
world, if at all possible. But like I keep saying, language die-
off is normal. On the other hand, let Esperanto pass into the
dustbin of history; such should be the fate of artificial
languages. Besides, the odds of children learning Esperanto as
their primary language are very remote. It could happen, but
think of how quirky their parents would be.
This topic reminds me of the movie WINDTALKERS, starring Nicholas
Cage and Adam Beach. An excellent film. Navajo is a cool
language, and I am glad that the efforts to preserve it have so
far been relatively successful. When I was growing up in
Minnesota, I remember hearing about a project to record old
surviving members of Ojibway and Sioux tribes speaking and
telling stories. Now you've got me wondering about that effort
and I've made a note to check it out. As if I don't have enough
school-work to do...
Thank you for the latest VOID, Mark. Always enjoyable and
interesting. By the way, MICHAEL CLAYTON has been getting good
reviews, and sounds like the kind of film I'd like. And tell
Evelyn that I have always enjoyed Doyle's Professor Challenger
stories. Fun reading. [-jp]
Mark replies:
I don't think that anybody has a political agenda to spread
English to other countries any more than there was a political
agenda to get everybody using cell phones. It is really
convenient and sometimes very necessary to be able to
communicate. The world is an easier place to live in when
language barriers are down. No small part of it was that those
big Hollywood movies were a lot easier to enjoy when you knew
what the people were saying. I doubt very much that it was a
political plot. However those who turn it to their advantage to
create paranoia and hatred have certainly used the imaginary
concept of "language imperialism" as a charge. And I would say
that within our own borders there have been agendas to get people
to use English. Getting non-English speaking immigrants to learn
and speak English is a win-win proposition.
I am more sympathetic to Esperanto than you are. It would be
less work worldwide if everybody had to learn only two languages.
And so regular a language as Esperanto is easier to learn than is
English, at least if you disregard entertainment media. But
English is filling the role of the near-universal second
language. Esperanto is not a bad idea; it is a good idea that
did not pan out.
I thought WINDTALKERS would have been better if it was more about
windtalking. It was substantially a cliched war film with code
language as a subplot. But at least it told about the code-
talking episode of the war to people who might not otherwise know
about it. PBS did a much more interesting documentary about the
code talkers, timed to show about the same time that the film was
released. I seem to remember having heard of it years earlier and
I think in our Southwest travels we heard there was an exhibit
that was tribute to the Windtalkers, but that it was at the time
located in a Burger King restaurant. If I remember that right, it
is a shame that there isn't something better.
As for Professor Challenger, around 1959 I discovered him and
went crazy for THE LOST WORLD. I have not read the other novels,
but did read the shorter stories which at least had some
interesting science fiction ideas. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
-30-: THE COLLAPSE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPER edited by
Charles M. Madigan (ISBN-13 978-1-56663-742-8, ISBN-10
978-1-56663-742-2) is a collection of articles by different
people, so it is not surprising that they do not all agree on the
causes of the phenomenon, the solutions (if any) to the
phenomenon, or even the age of the phenomenon. Several writers
say that the newspaper has been in decline for decades now. The
causes seem to be some subset of 1) the growth of the suburbs, 2)
the erosion of advertising revenues, 3) the spread of competing
media, and 4) greed. The growth of the suburbs is a two-fold
problem. First, the people in the suburbs have more interest in
their local communities and less in the big city itself. And
second, distributing a daily newspaper over an entire
metropolitan area is considerably more difficult than
distributing it within the relatively compact city limits.
The erosion of advertising revenues is, again, two-fold. The big
city center stores, with their multi-page ads, have declined, and
the chain stores in the suburban malls advertise in suburban
papers and direct mail flyers. And the classified section is
being eaten away by Web sites such as Craigslist.
Competing media have been around since radio became popular, and
this is why the story of the decline of newspapers has been
around almost as long. For example, the decline of the afternoon
newspaper can be attributed to the rise of the evening television
news, which competed in the same time slot, but with newer news,
and with more pictures.
And finally, greed. As newspapers went public, bought by large
conglomerates, their stockholders started demanding higher and
higher profits, profits comparable to other investments but not
in accord with the more intangible goals of the press. This may
be in part why the smaller newspapers are still surviving--they
are often still family-owned, and the family cares more about the
quality of the newspaper than squeezing out another few dollars.
One local example given by Neil Hickey may serve to explain why
there is disagreement. According to Hickey, "when Gannett took
over the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, it cut the staff from
225 to 180 and told the theater critic there was no money for him
to cover Broadway plays." Cutting the staff means less coverage,
and less in-depth coverage, than before, but I think Gannett may
have a point on the Broadway plays. At one time Asbury Press and
its constituents could have been considered being within the
circle of influence of Broadway. Nowadays, that is not true,
due to part to rising transportation and ticket costs. If the
Asbury Park Press wants to continue to cover culture, it would
probably do better for everyone if it shifted its staff to books,
which remain far more available to the Press's readers. (One
doesn't expect the Allentown, PA, or Albany, NY newspapers to
cover Broadway plays, does one?)
As for the solution, some feel a better integration of print
format and Web sites would help. Most feel that blindly
following what readers say they want (shorter stories, more
pictures, horoscopes) rather than providing better, more in-depth
reporting and analysis is not the solution. And all agree that
the constant cutting of staff most newspapers are trying will not
solve the problem. And there should be some solution; Hickey
points out that the news business "is the only business protected
by the Constitution of the United States, a status that brings
obligations for both the shareholder and the journalist."
If you want to read more about the future of journalism (with
some comments on newspapers), see my write-up on the panel
The Future of Journalism at the 2006 Worldcon
http://fanac.org/worldcon/LA_Con/x06-rpt.html#journalism.
THE KING'S ENGLISH by Kingsley Amis (ISBN-13 978-0-312-20657-4,
ISBN-10 0-312-20657-7) is a follow-on book to FOWLER'S MODERN
USAGE (and who knows what either of them would have had to say
about the word "follow-on"?). Two samples:
"-athon" and "-thon": "... Competitive events demanding
comparable endurance were quickly set up, like the so-called
'dance marathon' in the USA. This institution may have been in
doubtful taste but at least its name and nature were clear
enough. Not as much could be said for what followed, when the
second half of the word 'marathon' was taken as a sort of verbal
building-block when devising names fir less edifying activities
... [telethon, sale-a-thon, walkathon-talkathon]. Not every
Americanism deserves to have its credentials carefully examined.
Some ought to be shot on sight."
"Twice two": "Whether you should say twice two *is* four or
*are* four was the sort of 'argument' people interested in words
were sometimes asked to 'settle'. All right, then: either is
correct, and the two have been so for a half dozen centuries.
The 'was' and 'were' in the first sentence are in the past tense
because the problem involves some acquaintance with
multiplication. Next question."
I cannot say I always agree with Amis, but he does make many good
points, and also realizes that languages evolve and that there
are perfectly good American usages which do not pass muster in
Britain (though obviously not all of them, as evidenced by the
passage above!). Even if you do not agree with his conclusions,
his style is full of wit and intelligence, and well worth
reading. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Even if it doesn't work, there is something
healthy and invigorating about direct action.
-- Henry Miller