Monthly Archives: September 2016

Jimmy Dore Doesn’t Know the Filibuster Is Dead

Posted on by
8
Jimmy Dore

I heard an extended period of Wednesday’s Majority Report where Sam Seder went after Jimmy Dore hard on Dore’s fantasy scenarios for how Donald Trump getting elected is going to all work out. Then Dore called into the show. (This was planned.) And the two of them talked for an interminable period about how Trump could or could not be stopped from filling vacancies on the Supreme Court. Dore’s argument is that the Democrats can just filibuster for two years. Seder pushed back on this. But neither of them seem to be aware of the fact that the filibuster has been dead for years.

Now I know: there is still a filibuster in name. But it will never again stand in the way of the party in power doing what it wants. Let’s suppose that Hillary Clinton is the next president and the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. The Republicans will continue to filibuster Merrick Garland. So then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will step in and say the Republicans are not playing by the rules — because they won’t be. And he will get rid of the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees.

The Zombie Filibuster

This is what will happen because the filibuster has been effectively dead since the 2005 with the rise of the Gang of 14. As you may remember, this was a bipartisan group in the Senate that stopped Bill Frist from eliminating the filibuster, but only by allowing the Republicans to get 99% of the nominations that they wanted.

But notice something in my hypothetical above: I said that Schumer would only get rid of the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees. He won’t do it on legislation. Why would he? Schumer will have to take some political heat for officially cutting the filibuster back on the Supreme Court. There’s no point in him taking any heat for cutting it back on legislation, given that the Republicans will still have the House.

On the other hand, if the Republicans have control of the House, Senate, and presidency, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will get rid of the filibuster completely. That’s because they will all be prepared to cram Paul Ryan’s horrible budget into law. And there are many other horrible things they will do as well. McConnell would (Rightly!) not let the filibuster get in the way of his plans. The filibuster is like a zombie: it’s been dead for ten years. Somehow, people like Jimmy Dore (and to some extent, Sam Seder) don’t know that.

Jimmy Dore Is Ignorant and Dangerous

I fond the whole Jimmy Dore routine hard to stomach. It reminded me of the way that Scotty got out of the whole “changing history” thing in Star Trek IV. You may remember that they gave some chemist the secret to transparent aluminum. Bones questioned Scotty on the issue and Scotty replied, “How do we know he didn’t invent the thing?” Problem solved! You come up with something that could happen and suddenly it will.

Dore’s entire case against voting for Clinton is that there are ways in which Trump could be great for the nation — or at least not too bad for a couple of years before we get the glorious revolution. And that’s true! There are scenarios you can come up with. But the odds are at least a hundred to one that if Trump becomes president, he is going to be an unmitigated disaster that will take decades to recover from.

Jimmy Dore’s Life Is Good!

Of course, Jimmy Dore can go on spouting his nonsense about how the zombie filibuster will save us. He has nothing to fear. He’s a successful guy. I don’t know if he has kids, but if he does, he needn’t worry that they will go hungry if Trump turns out to be as bad as all evidence indicates. So listening to him prattle on as though he were some kind revolutionary just makes the absurdity of his upper-middle class (Or upper class!) privilege all the more vile.

The Filibuster Is Dead

The filibuster is dead. If Trump gets into office, the Republicans will push through legislation that they’ve been hanging onto for years. It will be catastrophic for poor people. And if this happens, I’m sure Jimmy Dore will say, “Oops! I guess I was wrong.” But I want more. Jimmy Dore should go out to the desert, pour gasoline all over his body, and light the match. I want this election to be a matter of life-and-death for him, just as it is for millions of poor Americans. Then maybe he would think a little deeper about his zombie filibuster fantasies.

Jimmy Dore by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Odd Words: Barcarole

Posted on by
2

Barcarole - Venetian Boat SongThere were really only two things on page 22 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition: barbiturate and barometer. Really: it was amazing. I understand barometer. It was all pressure related words. But it was remarkable how many words had to do with barbiturates. Just the same, that was a time when there was still memory of people dying a lot for them. Hail the benzodiazepines! But there were other words, so today’s is barcarole.

Barcarole and Beyond

There were some other interesting words beside barcarole, of course. For example: barghest. This is some kind of ghostly apparition that is supposed to be an omen of death. I have a curious relationship with death. I really don’t fear it. At the same time, I wonder how I would feel if I were staring it right in the face. I know that any freak-out that I experienced would just be genetic encoding. But it wouldn’t make it any less unpleasant. The point is that I wonder how I would react if a barghest appeared to me tonight. Probably okay. I’m most okay with death when I’m half asleep.

Anyway, enough of that. On to “barcarole.”

Bar·ca·role  noun  \bär’-kə-rōl\

1. a Venetian boat song or a piece of music in imitation of this.

Date: late 18th century.

Origin: from the French word barcarolle, which means exactly what barcarole means. In fact, the word is often spelled the same way in English. Where the French got the word, I don’t kow.

Example: But whether I am faking on a player piano, or striking the chords with my own mind and hands, the song of my life is equally suspenseful and full of surprises as it rolls off the pulsating sounding board of destiny — a barcarole that either way will leave. —Bulletin of the New York Public Library

The image above is cropped from A Gondola on the Grand Canal, Venice by William Callow. It is in the public domain.

Silly and Stupid Atheist Challenge

Posted on by
35

PZ Myers - Atheist ChallengeChristopher Hitchens offered up an atheist challenge to religious believers: name one moral act that is excluded from the atheist population. Well, that’s a silly challenge. Even brain damaged Biblical literalists understand that atheists can be good people. What is the purpose of this challenge but to get into the gutter with the most vile of apologetics of the cultural Christians? Nothing obviously. And this is a big part of my problem with the modern atheist community. Are we really going to be just like them? Are we really going to show that our understanding of their culture is as vapid as theirs is of ours?

But I was listening to a lecture that PZ Myers gave back in 2010, Science vs Religion: How Faith Makes Us Wrong. And he ended it with his own atheist challenge: name one example where religion has provided us with a novel insight about the natural world. I actually like PZ Myers, but his atheist challenge is beyond silly. It’s just stupid.

How about a theist challenge: name one example where science has provided us with a novel insight about theology. Religion is not in the business of coming up with insights about the natural world. It serves a sociological purpose. Asking it for insights about nature is like asking Dancing with the Stars for insights about nature. It’s absurd.

Who Cares About the Atheist Challenge?

I say all this as someone who doesn’t think that religion adds much to society. Human experience is so varied that what we once got from religion we can now get in countless other ways. The one thing that religion could provide us is some kind of social cohesion. But given that most people still follow ancient religions, we don’t get that. In fact, we get rather the opposite. But there are trends toward a shared spiritual sense. And I do think that humans are likely reach some kind of shared insight. But it will be no thanks to the atheist community that acts every bit as tribal and intolerant as the the theistic fundamentalists.

Myers brought up a tired old atheist complaint: why didn’t God tell the people to wash their hands?! Oh my God! Jesus said it wasn’t necessary to wash your hands! He must not be God! Well, as I would have said when I was ten: duh! What do people like PZ Myers think the Bible is, anyway? It’s just a bunch of folk tales and the results of sectional fighting about how the Jewish and (later) Christian communities should be. It was, in that way, no different than the Iliad was for the Greeks.

The problem with so many atheist complaints — and totally on display in the atheist challenge — is that they are committing the straw man fallacy. Most people think of this only in terms of the individual. There are theists who make stupid arguments and 99% of the time spent by professional atheists is used to refute these arguments. So we get the atheist challenge to show that atheists can be moral. And we get the atheist challenge that religion should provide scientific insights. These do not address the best arguments theists make. It’s unbelievable that atheists act this way.

Saving Atheism From Itself

And before my atheist friends get all upset that I am yet again complaining about the atheist community, consider this: it’s embarrassing. We atheists are supposed to be the smart ones. We’re supposed to be the open-minded ones. But instead, we’re just like them. We’re more interested in winning people to our side than in looking for the truth. The fact that I still complain shows my commitment. But I have to admit, it is failing me. More and more, I see the atheist community as bankrupt and irredeemable.

Image of PZ Myers by Alf Melin, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Odd Words: Baldachin

Posted on by
Reply

Fuechsel BaldachinThere were certainly a lot of weird words on page 21 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! It’s not surprising that I didn’t know “balneal” and “balneology” since they have to do with bathing. But it is surprising that I didn’t know “bandog,” given my interest in people breading dogs to be vicious. But instead, I picked the word “baldachin.”

Baldachin Is Not Banal

On page 21 there was a word most literate people know well: banal. A question that has been much debated during my life is how this word should be pronounced. The fact that such a debate should stand out in my life certainly says much about the kind of life I’ve led. But up until I was in college, it never occurred to me that anyone would pronounce it other than “bənäl.” But no. There were lots of people who pronounced it “bānəl.”

What’s interesting is that with a hard-a, the word sounds rather aggressive. And the people who preferred it were quite aggressive on the matter. The people who preferred the more laid-back pronunciation tended to be more laid-back in general. “Banal” still strikes me as a laid-back word. If one wished to be aggressive, one would just exclaim, “Boring!” And that would be that.

The Dying Hard-A of Banal

Apparently, the whole hard-a “banal” is an American thing. Oxford doesn’t even mention that pronunciation in its definition of banal. But even Merriam-Webster lists this pronunciation third — with “loser” in parentheses after it. (I’m just kidding about the “loser” part.) My bet is that this pronunciation is falling out of favor because it just sounds silly.

Anyway, enough of that. On to “baldachin.”

Bal·da·chin  noun  \bal’-də-kin\

1. a silk fabric embroidered with gold or silver threads.

2. a canopy carried over an important person or sacred object.

3. a canopy over an altar

Date: late 16th century.

Origin: from the Italian word baldacchino, which means canopy.

Example: They can well have resulted from the application of cloth of the baldachin to the surface of the panel before the paint had dried entirely, and from the consequent absorption of some of the paint by the cloth. —Carl Hermann Kraeling

Fuechsel Baldachin by Uoaei1, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Odd Words: Bahuvrihi

Posted on by
Reply

Bahuvrihi - Much RiceHow uninspiring was page 20 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! Over a quarter of it was given over to bacteria related words: bactericide, bacteriology, bacteriolysis, bacteriophage, bacterioscopy, bacteriostasis, bacteriostat, bacteroid, and bacteroides. I won’t insult your intelligence by defining any of them for you. But it does rather make me wish I had become a bacteriologist. I’m really not that interested in bacteria, and maybe it is best to go into a field that you don’t much care about. Lay bare the meaning of life — or lack thereof.

More Grammar: Bahuvrihi

The word I’ve picked for today is one that relates to my chosen profession: bahuvrihi. But I didn’t pick it because I was terribly interested in it. It’s just that the two other words I found more interesting didn’t have as much information available. The first was “baculine.” That is an adjective that relates to the cane or rod used to beat people — usually children — as punishment. I’ve always found that kind of fascinating given that I was not beaten as a child. A raised eyebrow was generally enough to get me hiding under the bed. But if not, yelling certainly worked.

The second word was “bagatelle.” That one would have been fun because the book provides three different definitions: an unimportant triffle; a short, light piece of music; and a game that is like billiards played on an oblong board. This is indicative of specialized words. They lose much of their power when they are thusly ghettoized. Poor bagatelle!

So we are left with a little linguistics: bahuvrihi.

Ba·hu·vri·hi  noun  \bä-hu-‘vrē-hē\

1. a compound noun or adjective comprising two parts, the first, which is adjectival, describing the second, which is substantival, as fairminded, redeye.

Date: circa 19th century.

Origin: from the Sanskrit word bahuvrīhi, which is itself a bahuvrihi — literally: muchrice.

Example: In general, and as others have mentioned, it is possible to reconstruct a couple of macro-patterns for IE names, namely two-part bahuvrihi compounds, and derivational or compositional patronymic formulae. —Gordiep

Image cropped from Rice Hand Harvest by FreeImages9. It is in the public domain.

Trump Win? Reasons to Think Yes and No

Posted on by
11

Will Donald Trump Win?Will Donald Trump win? The inconceivable looks more and more conceivable. I’m not just talking about the polls. Or the media coverage. The economic fundamentals of this race are basically tied. And I suspect that is where we will end in November. Sadly, the American voter doesn’t pay much attention to politics. We go with our gut. And in the gut department, Trump is doing pretty well. It’s very easy to see Trump win the presidency.

On Friday, I listened to a bit of Majority Report. Sam Seder poo-pooed a recent poll that found that 58 percent of Trump voters were enthusiastic to vote for him while only 46 percent were similarly inclined toward Clinton. Seder noted that he wasn’t enthusiastic to vote for Clinton, but he was still going to trudge to the polls and vote for her.

This is the wrong way to think about this. Of course a political junkie is going to vote regardless of their low enthusiasm for a particular candidate. Where a 12 percent point difference in enthusiasm hurts is on the margins. Right now, Real Clear Politics has Clinton up by only 1.1 percentage points in a 4-way race. It doesn’t take many people just not caring to make Trump win.

Could Trump Win the Debates?

Liberals are now hoping that Hillary Clinton can turn things around in the debates. Could be! But I’m not very hopeful. Everyone already knows that Clinton is competent in the extreme. The supposed problem with her is that you just can’t trust her because of “lingering questions” and the “appearance of corruption.” Donald Trump’s well documented dishonesty is mostly a nonissue now. It is dog-bites-man. The people may not know, but the journalists do, so why cover it?

Hillary ClintonBut I don’t know what liberals think Donald Trump is going to do at the debates. Do they think he’s going to bark like a dog? Or say that women shouldn’t vote? Do they think he will actively insult Clinton? No. He will do his “presidential” act. Clinton has real policy proposals? Trump will have policy-ish proposals. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference. And given the “expectations game” that the media play, it will very likely make Trump win.

Good News for Clinton

There are things that bode well for Hillary Clinton. One is simply that even with all the bad press, she’s still ahead. We get a very skewed view of things when we look at the polling trend. The truth is that Clinton’s support after the DNC was always soft. Her support for the last month has been steady. It’s Trump’s support that has gone up. And I think that’s just Republicans falling in line. We all knew that would happen. It always happens. It happened with Romney.

There is also a over a month and a half left of this campaign. I don’t see things getting worse for Clinton. What’s more, I think that liberals have done a good job of working the refs. Even though the press is pushing back, saying that they are just following the facts, knowing that your fact-free anti-Clinton innuendo stories are going to be savaged will change the coverage. What’s more, I think (Hope?!) as we get closer to election day, a lot of third-party “I just can’t vote for Hillary” types will see the reality of the situation.

Finally, Clinton is good at the nuts-and-bolts of political campaigns. Donald Trump is not. The Clinton campaign has an army spread out across the country to get people to the polls. Is that enough for her to defeat Donald Trump? No, not alone. But it is a major advantage.

Will Trump Win?

The fact that Trump has any chance at all of winning is terrifying. I’ve said for a long time that this election really will come down to a generic Republican versus a generic Democrat. The truth is that Donald Trump is a typical Republican. The only thing that sets him apart is that he’s vulgar. I’m not worried about him starting World War III. I’m worried about him filling the Supreme Court. There are many other things that I worry about as well. But the Supreme Court alone is enough to terrify me.

We can’t let Trump win!

Donald Trump image via Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Hillary Clinton by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Odd Words: Bacchanal

Posted on by
Reply

BacchanalWe have arrived on page 19 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. And that means we have reached the Bs! I’m all done with the As. Just 25 more letters to go! Today’s B word is: bacchanal.

Bacchanal is an odd word in the sense that I kind of think I already knew it. There’s so much sloshing around in the chemical soup that is my brain that it’s hard to tell. But I knew I had to pick the word because its definition contained the words “drunken” and “orgy.” Now personally, I drink the way God intended: alone. But from a writing perspective, you can’t go wrong with those two words.

Boring Besides Bacchanal

This page contained a lot of words and phrases I knew: backbencher and backward, for example. But it also contained way too many bacci- words. These all have to do with berries. Are you a plant that yields berries? Then you are bacciferous! Are you shaped like a berry? Then you are bacciform! Do you feed on berries? Then you are baccivorous. (If you feed on picnic baskets, you are yogivorous, but that will have to wait for a later day.)

There was one really cool word: babbitt. That’s “a complacent person who conforms unthinkingly to middle-class standards.” Although I didn’t know the word, I was pretty sure that it was a reference to the Sinclair Lewis novel, Babbitt. So there’s that.

But I chose sex and drugs over literature: baccanal.

Bac·cha·nal  noun  \bä-kə-‘näl\

1. a drunken reveler.

2. a drunken orgy or feast.

Date: mid 16th century.

Origin: from Latin, Bacchānal, which means either a place where people have parties for Bacchus (Roman wine god) or the parties themselves.

Example: One part post-everything, campy bacchanal, one part musical history lesson, Honey Soundsystem sets are a hot ticket all over the States, from their Generator residency at Smart Bar in Chicago to frequent appearances at A Club Called Rhonda in Los Angeles. —Jemayel Khawaja

Image cropped from Bacchus God Sculpture by dMz. It is in the public domain.

Question for Conservative Christians: Jesus or Trump?

Posted on by
22

Jesus Weeping - Conservative ChristiansIt’s fascinating to see the huge numbers of conservative Christians who are supporting Donald Trump. But as I’ve noted before, there isn’t much left of American Christianity other other than being anti-choice, anti-LGBT rights, and having a “special feeling” that God is their personal friend. This last one really bugs me because it is a heretical view that would have got then burned at the stake in centuries past. They’ve turned Jesus into little more than a child’s imaginary friend.

But not all conservative Christians are supporting Donald Trump. It’s just the vast majority of them. Last Friday, the National Religious Broadcasters held a debate between pro- and anti-Trump conservative Christians. Peter Montgomery reported on it for Right Wing Watch, Conservative Evangelicals Debate Whether Christians Should Support Trump. It’s a fascinating read.

Erick Erickson Makes Sense

Most interesting was seeing Erick Erickson making some sense on the issue of Trump and sounding like what conservative Christians always claim to be. He said that Trump didn’t share conservative Christian values. He noted that Trump “bragged in his books about multiple affairs, including with married women, has cheated widows and single moms and the elderly out of money through Trump University, has stiffed the low-income worker on his buildings, telling them if they want to collect everything they’re owed they need to sue.”

In response, Janet Parshall quoted polling data. In other words: conservative Christians should support Donald Trump because conservative Christians support Donald Trump. I think this all comes down to the Christian persecution complex. They know that in an ever diversifying nation, democracy isn’t going to get them the One True Religion™ designation that they so want. So they turn to an authoritarian. And it doesn’t really matter what he believes as long as he will give them that seal of approval.

God’s Not Dead?

Yesterday, I read a review of the film God’s Not Dead 2. It was written by a Christian, Mary Pezzulo. She noted that the film is an advertisement, which is fine. But it isn’t an advertisement for Jesus or Christianity. It is an advertisement for America. And not just any America, but the America on display when football fans refuse to watch the 49ers because Colin Kaepernick places American ideals above American symbols.

God’s Not Dead 2 seems to be very much in line with the conservative Christians who support Trump. They aren’t interested in what one normally thinks of as Christianity. Their interest is in pushing a particular idea of America. So it isn’t surprising that these people would support Trump. It’s really just about the politics. And that’s fine in a general sense, because Jesus was interested in politics. But he didn’t seem to be interested in the politics that would make one support Donald Trump.

My Question for Conservative Christians

So here’s my question for Donald Trump Christians: how do they know they follow Jesus and not Satan? Because they “feel” Jesus’ love? Couldn’t that be Satan making them feel that way? Trump preaches exactly the opposite of the Sermon on the Mount. Here is how Matthew 5 starts:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God…

Or as Donald Trump would put it, “Blessed are the losers.”

I want to know if conservative Christians see Matthew 5-7 as nothing more than some beautiful poetry to be shoved aside when an authoritarian comes to town and claims he’ll make good on all your prejudices?

I’m not a Christian, so I don’t believe in Jesus or Satan or any of that. But in the context of Christianity, it seems to me that these Trump supporting Christians have picked the wrong side. As Jesus said later in the Sermon, “You will know them by their fruits.”

Image cropped from And Jesus Wept by Terry Alexander. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Odd Words: Autonym

Posted on by
Reply

AutonymWe have landed on page 18 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. It was a difficult page, because it contained only one non-jargon word I didn’t know. But it is a good one: autonym.

The reason page 18 was so bad was that it was not a full page. This is because it was the last page in the A section. And it makes me wonder. Am I really going to continue to do this for well over a year longer. The last page of Z is 410. So I’m looking at about 13 months. The very idea of it frightens me.

Doing these Odd Words posts is hard. It isn’t that the work itself is hard, though. I liken it to imaginary numbers in math. When I first learned of imaginary numbers, I disliked them. And all through my studies, I was filled with dread whenever I had to deal with them. They were never a problem. But they felt like they were a problem. These posts are like that. I think it’s just knowing I have to deal with upside down e characters and umlauts and various other things that just aren’t on my keyboard.

But enough of my whining.

Finding My Autonym

One of my great failings as a human being is being overly honest. For many things I have written in the past, I should have used a pseudonym. But I didn’t because of my open nature and my extreme naivete when it comes to the way people react to things outside their comfort zone. On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about people discovering my autonym. Not that I don’t play around with my first name because, let’s face it, most people are far too self-involved to spend more than a couple of seconds researching me. (And they are right to be so disinterested!)

But I do think this is an excellent word: autonym.

Au·to·nym  noun  \ô’-tə-nim;\

1. one’s real name; an author’s own name.

2. (cultural anthropology) the name that a people give to themselves.

Date: mid 19th century.

Origin: construction of the English prefix “auto” (meaning “oneself”) and the suffix “onym” (meaning “name”).

Example: In the late 1980s, Blacks began to abandon the term Afro-American, adopting the autonym African American instead. —Deborah Dickerson

Image of The Pseudonym Autonym Libraries is in the public domain.

The TPP Is Not About Helping the Poor in Asia

Posted on by
Reply

Dean Baker on 2016 July Jobs ReportIn fact, growth in all of these countries slowed in the years after 1997 when they switched from running trade deficits to surpluses. The slowdown was less in Vietnam than in the other countries of the region, but even Vietnam had slower growth in the period touted by Popper than in the years from 1991 to 1997. In other words, the idea that manufacturing workers in the US had to take a hit to allow people in the developing world to escape poverty is absurd on its face.

This argument is even more pernicious in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade deal currently on the agenda. The trade barriers to imports from the countries in the pact are already low, so the TPP would actually do little to open US markets further to these countries. On the other hand, a major thrust of the pact is to strengthen and lengthen patent and copyright protections.

These forms of protectionism will have poor people in the developing countries in the pact paying more money for prescription drugs, fertilizer, and software than they would otherwise. This protectionism will make them poorer and increase poverty. It will also make it difficult for people in poor countries to have access to life-saving drugs.

Of course the TPP will increase the profits of companies like Pfizer, Merck, and Microsoft. This could explain the huge efforts to promote the TPP among the public. Certainly this push cannot be explained by a concern for the poor in the developing world.

—Dean Baker
How Much Do We Learn About Trade and Poverty in the Developing World from a NYT Article Ostensibly Telling Us About Trade?

Image of Dean Baker cropped from one at the CEPR. Image and text licensed under CC BY 4.0.

RAS Syndrome, ATM Machines, and PIN Numbers

Posted on by
10

ATM Machine - RAS SyndromeBack in June, I wrote, Less vs Fewer: Pedantry at the Grocery Store. It told the story of my running into a grammar pedant at the Whole Foods. He was very happy that the express checkout said “15 items or fewer” and not “15 items or less.” Being a grammar liberal, I was not impressed. In the article, I responded, “Worrying about less vs fewer is just foolish. Or fatuous. Or silly. Oh my God! What is the exact right word to describe this?! I’m sure there are people buying eggplants in Whole Foods right now who won’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”

Jurgan commented that he was more understanding of the issue. Then he mentioned one thing that really bothered him was things like “ATM machine.” The point being that ATM stands for “automated teller machine.” So when one says “ATM machine,” one is saying “automated teller machine machine.” These are the kinds of things that do drive people a bit crazy. As you will see, they do not generally drive me crazy.

The RAS Syndrome

A while after that, a writer I work with a lot, Claire Broadley, sent me a link to the Wikipedia page on RAS Syndrome. It came along with a note that said she thought I might enjoy it. Indeed! For you see, RAS is an acronym for “redundant acronym syndrome” So RAS Syndrome is redundant acronym syndrome syndrome. “ATM machine” is one of the big examples of this. The page also lists PIN (personal identification number) number. In fact, RAS Syndrome is often referred to as PNS Syndrome: PIN Number Syndrome Syndrome. And that is just delicious: personal identification number number syndrome syndrome. Admittedly, not as good as Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. But still: very good.

I understand how certain things will just send a chill down the spine. “AIDS syndrome” bothers me… But ATM and PIN? I don’t think they are acronyms anymore.

Wikipedia also goes to the trouble of explaining, “The term RAS Syndrome is intentionally redundant…” That makes me think of, “Take my wife, as in ‘consider my wife’… Please! In the different sense of ‘take’ you see. I was implying that you should consider my wife but I was really just saying that you should take her off my hands! This is because I don’t like my wife very much!” I don’t think many people were scratching their heads, “Don’t they realize they’ve done the same thing with RAS Syndrome that they’re complaining about?!”

Let’s All Be Understanding

I am inclined to be forgiving of the RAS Syndrome. And I’m hardly alone. Wikipedia quotes Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words as saying, “Not all repetition is bad. It can be used for effect… or for clarity, or in deference to idiom…. ‘SALT talks’ and ‘HIV virus’ are… technically redundant because the second word is already contained in the preceding abbreviation, but only the ultra-finicky would deplore them.”

This is an excellent point that many people miss: we aren’t only trying to do one thing with language. But I would go further. Precision is well down the list of what we want when writing. It is rarely the case that a piece of writing will be ruined because one used “silly” when “facetious” was more precise.

When Do Acronyms Stop Being Acronyms?

But when it comes to the RAS Syndrome, are we really so sure that it is redundant. Consider the ATM. I remember, being perhaps 8-years-old, when our town got its first automated teller machine. You could take out a maximum of $50 per day, and you could only take out cash in $25 increments: a twenty and a five. But even being there at the very start, I don’t think of ATM as an acronym. And I haven’t for decades. The same is true of PIN, which was an acronym almost the moment it was a phrase.

Now I understand how certain things will just send a chill down the spine. “AIDS syndrome” bothers me — largely because of the emotional power of “AIDS” and that it has never quite stopped being an acronym. But ATM and PIN? I don’t think they are acronyms anymore. So I can understand people bristling at “PIN number,” but I don’t think they have any cause to feel superior about it. And that is exactly what most people do do.

Apparently, the term RAS Syndrome was coined in a New Scientist feedback column. And whoever came up with it must be applauded. Because I think it helps everyone treat the issue with the gentle amusement that it deserves.

Afterword

According to New Scientist, the “NT” in Windows NT did not stand for “New Technology,” but rather “Northern Telecom.” This is not actually true. Once Microsoft licensed “NT,” it explicitly used it to mean “New Technology.” I remember. I was there during the NT-OS/2 wars. So “NT technology,” which Microsoft used all the time, was, in fact, an example of the RAS Syndrome.

Image cropped from Triton Brand Cash Machine by Nenyedi, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Edward Albee Is Dead

Posted on by
4

Edward AlbeeI just learned that Edward Albee died yesterday. It isn’t a shock; he was 88 years old. Still, it is sad. He was a hero of mine.

I first discovered him in high school. I went over to the college, which was performing The Zoo Story. It was a total mystery to me going in. And it was performed in a converted classroom. There were perhaps 50 people in the audience. I was blown away. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could do so much with just two actors and a bench. Now, of course, I see it in context. But then it was totally new to me.

It started my obsession with Theatre of the Absurd. But that term always brings to mind Eugène Ionesco. It’s actually much broader than that. Albee was more in the tradition of Samuel Beckett. Although clearly The Zoo Story was influenced by John Osborne. Albee was at his best when he was at his most real. Things like The American Dream are at best uninspired, and certainly nothing worth reading more than once.

Edward Albee’s Work

The truth is that Albee’s work was quite uneven. But I think that says something good about him. He was always searching. At the same time, it is hard not to think he was just a bit evil. I read Tiny Alice many times in high school — trying to figure out what Albee was on about. I finally went to the college library and researched the play. After it opened in New York, reporters asked him what the play meant. He replied that he knew when he was writing it but that he had forgotten. It was a good response, but I think Albee was rarely clear what he was doing.

Edward Albee is best known for his 1962 play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I’ve cooled to it over the years. It is such hateful play about four unlikable people. I have a bleak outlook on life, but it isn’t that bleak. Don’t misunderstand: the play is brilliant and there is much truth in it. But I think his aim was much more true in A Delicate Balance.

Middle Period

After that, Albee got a little soft with two of his best plays: All Over and Seascape. He seemed to get to the point where he could see past alienation. Both of those plays triumph over alienation in their way. And then, Edward Albee went rudderless — for about a decade.

That’s not to say the work was bad. Certainly he got lots of bad reviews, but that was true of most of his work. He never wrote the kind of stuff that was meant to be fully appreciated in one viewing or reading. But he wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done before. But all that changed in 1991 with what I consider his masterpiece, Three Tall Women.

Three Tall Women

It’s hard to say just what is so great about the play. The second half is simply a conversation between the same woman at three different ages: 20s, 50s, and 90s. And it shows, in such a powerful way, how cynicism grows in us. I’ve done a lot of writing trying to mimic what Edward Albee does in that play. But like the greatest art, it’s obvious yet elusive.

Anyway, it’s sad that Edward Albee has died. But he left us a lot of great work. And I assume he had as good a life as anyone could reasonably expect.

Image of Edward Albee is from Digital Library. It is in the public domain.