Taking down the winners and the losers: America's National Pastime

Late summer is traditionally a bit slow in terms of big news, and this summer there are only three big issues: the pandemic, the Olympics, and culture wars pitting Republicans vs. Democrats.

I am exaggerating slightly, but I click on almost any news website and you will see what I mean. 

The Olympics are designed to bring the world together but seldom do. This edition is no different and maybe worse than most years. We have gotten to the point that occurrences such as Simone Biles choosing her personal health over competing can combine BOTH the Olympics and the culture wars.

After all, she is a woman and she is Black, so of course old white men feel free to take shots at her. And plenty of other folks feel free to chime in praising her or defending her or using her to get into something else they want to argue about.

She is also a gymnast, a sport that only an incredibly small percentage of humans ever partake in. It's difficult and dangerous and most people might avoid a sport like that for EITHER of those reasons. So logic might suggest that most of us would not get tightly wrapped up in how gymnasts do (we could care less outside the Olympic Games).

But then comes the daughter of a Hmong immigrant, settled in Minnesota, of all places, to eek out the All-Around gold medal that everyone assumed Ms. Biles would claim.

Suni Lee is only 18 and already a superstar. There is near universal praise and applause.

But now that she has reached the pinnacle in her sport, it's only a matter of time until she manages to tick someone off or fail to meet some predetermined standard or not meet some vague level of beauty, and the trolls will attack. Does that sound cynical?

Here is one trait that really DOES bind Americans off all political parties, genders, ages, etc.: we all love to see anyone who is celebrated, on top, elected, etc., taken down a notch. We love to attack the successful.

We also like to attack the extremely "unsuccessful." For instance, what's the deal with all the homeless people? And why can't people pay their rent? And why not just move to a better place when your city or state does not provide support?

Our thinking as a nation must be that the mighty will always land in a good place, not matter how much they falter and that the lowly have no power, so who cares if they don't like being picked on?

We are not a very attractive nation right now. Perhaps that is another thing we can all agree upon.

When you care just enough to confuse readers

A headline for a movie review in yesterday's Washington Post reminded me of yet another of my many pet peeves, namely writers settling for a vague term when the tiniest extra effort could turn the vague into the specific (and more helpful).

See if you spot the offending word in the review's headline.

‘Stillwater,’ with Matt Damon, is four movies in one, and only some of them work

If you chose "some" you are on my wavelength. How many equals "some," we might ask. And the headline writer DID focus on a specific number of movie themes (four) before growing tired (?) and not choosing either one or two, which must be the number of movies "not working."

Words like some and many and a few, along with a long list of similar words, never work very well in persuasive writing, or any other kind of writing.

"I have some money" tells you absolutely nothing. Now if I say, "I have some money BUT not enough to help you out with that problem," then I have at least offered some information. Or "I have some money AND I want to donate to that cause" offers some sort of action.

The former president loves to say, "Many people are talking about..." and has never in his lifetime offered any specific numbers of those doing the talking or hinting at who they might be. Vagueness is a very common rhetorical fallacy, and it's so common that we just get tired of asking the logical follow up, something like, "Well, how many are your referring to when you say 'some' " Or "How many is A LOT in this case?"

Another quibble with that headline about the new film is that it is not parallel, with a much stronger version lurking to be chosen, like "...four movies in one, and two don't work."

That specificity helps organize the structure of the review itself, since the headline forces the writer to include (probably) at least four sections, with each dealing with one of the four movies.

Good writing is hard, certainly, but being too lazy to go beyond vagueness? That has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with not caring all that much.

At least, that's what a lot of people are saying.

Watching smart people yell at each other is fun

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Kevin McCarthy a "moron" following his kneejerk refusal to wear masks in Congress as called for by the Capitol physician.

This sort of name calling is both satisfying in the short term to the clearly frustrated and angry Rep. Pelosi (and to many others) and unlikely to win any argument. I often mutter comments like "moron!" when I am watching the news or reading the latest bizarre statement from, say, Colorado's representative from the 3rd district (who shall not be named). 

Cooler heads usually prevail after the initial steam is blown off, and Pelosi refused to repeat her dismissive comment later when journalists asked. That is smart.

When we try to win arguments through name calling it is termed an ad hominem appeal, which is one of the first logical fallacies most people learn. "Ad hominem" is Latin for "to the man [or person]," which makes the term self-explanatory once you know that.

I would guess that most of the arguments I attempted to win for quite a few years of my very young life would have been ad hominem attacks, and I dimly remember that the common reaction to me calling someone on the playground a name was to hear myself attacked in a similar fashion. "Dumb head" or "idiot" were often the choice of school kids who were not yet comfortable going right to the four- or seven- or twelve-letter words in public.

The reason ad hominem attacks are fallacies is that they have no connection with the facts involved in a dispute and they do not advance any sort of logical case. They are lazy, though I would be the first to agree with Ms. Pelosi on an emotional level.

In reality, many politicians (not to mention a large chunk of King Soopers customers or drivers on I-25) are worse than morons. The word "moron" means a stupid person or someone who is foolish. I would guess that most politicians, even the earlier mentioned Colorado rep, are not really stupid. Being stupid relates to limitations on a person that are beyond their control. 

Some people make arguments that have no support, no logical underpinning, and no point beyond raising hackles and causing chaos. 

Academic writers are wise to avoid those sorts of arguments. Check that. Everyone should avoid those sorts of arguments, but sometimes we just can't resist.

The frequent urge to attack opponents as "boo boo poopy heads" is a solid reason that our first draft of any piece of writing should not be our final draft. 

Feel free to blow off some steam in a draft if that helps you. But then make use of the DELETE key to get back to trying to be persuasive.

You're not the boss of me!

There's no way to measure the "total stubbornness" quotient of people, but Americans must be ranked fairly highly when it comes to being stubborn.

We don't use that word, preferring stuff like "I'm free," and "Live free or die," or some such. But freedom has almost nothing to do with why people routinely choose bad options and proudly defend their right to say no to, well, almost anything.

Every day I am reminded of how many "mandates" and "thou shalt nots" surround us, and how most of them once inspired protest and naysaying but are now just the way we live. Seatbelts were quite controversial in my youth -- lots of wacky stories about fear of being trapped underwater after a car plunges off a bridge, so it's best to be "safe" and able to get free -- and I was too young to know it, but there must have been lots of folks who railed against the polio vaccine in the 1950s. 

Speed limits limit our freedom to drive as fast as we feel is safe, and some people bend or simply ignore those limits --FREEDOM! -- but most drivers stick fairly close to the posted limits. Same with stop lights. "You can't tell me when to come to a complete stop to let other traffic move along. I want to GO!"

One might think that after decades of evidence about the efficiency of vaccines in preventing (and sometimes ending) certain diseases, Americans might treat the idea of getting an approved vaccine in the same way as we put on our seat belts. Automakers have engineered them to be easy and effective and most of us don't really pause to think about "clicking." 

Here is a short list of vaccines that the vast majority of Americans receive when they are young children -- of course, the freedom of children is severely limited since they are not fully rational adults:

• Diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (pertussis) (DTaP)
• Polio (IPV)
• Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR)
• Chickenpox (varicella)

Most public schools mandate most of these vaccines for entering students and most people go along with them. The safety of their children and other children around them outweighs individual choice. In just a generation or two, vaccines essentially wipe out lots of dangerous disease.

Everyone is stubborn about some things, of course, and the idea of "sticking to your guns" (which couldn't be a more American idiom) can be laudable.

But stubbornly refusing to stop at the red light will eventually injure or kill a person, plus others involved in resultant crashes.

We know how to "fix" our pandemic problems. Government needs to step up and create laws and regulations that mandate vaccines. That's it. It was good to see today that some states (not Red ones, God forbid) are starting to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for Covid. The VA system is mandating vaccines for front-line health workers.

Will there be protests? Duh. Will most people break down and begrudgingly get the vaccine if not doing so keeps them from working or going to a concert or ballgame or flying on a plane? Duh.

Will getting vaccinated eliminate the human trait of stubbornly ignoring common sense and facts? 

Duh.

'The new phone book's here..." and other puzzlers from pop culture

I ran across this article today in the Washington Post and was immediately drawn in.

The topic was interesting to an old-timer who has experienced having to retire "go-to" cultural references over four decades of teaching. I got a lot of mileage out of my amateurish Steve Martin impressions and injecting lines like, "Someone must hate these cans." 

Trust me, but that line is perfect for so many occasions when pointing out woeful ignorance is required.

BTW, the headline for this post is another line from the same film, and without context doesn't make much sense.

If the audience has not seen "The Jerk," such references elicit nothing but blank stares.

If you haven't heard about the Keystone Cops, you might have found the opening paragraph of the Post article puzzling. And adding that explanatory second graf is not very satisfying, in the same way that being forced to stop and explain all the components of joke might be. 

I'm not sure exactly how much time it takes for a cultural reference to become dated, like the Cops, but my guess is that I learned about the originals from my parents or grandparents. I am fairly certain that my own children did not hear about them from me... and those old black and white films don't appear on even the most obscure cable networks. But I saw them on TV sometime in the 1950s.

In the high school classroom, I learned that no matter how "perfect" a cultural reference might be in explanations or assignments, insisting on dated references was doomed. I can't tell you how many teen-oriented TV programs I watched over the years in a never-ending quest to remain relevant. It was tough to tell whether my teen audience was impressed or creeped out, but at least they could follow along.

Maybe old age comes when we simply give up the quest.

But it is also possible to "get ahead" in terms of cultural references. There are many times when I am watching the Samantha Bee show "Full Frontal," and I simply don't get some names or event references. I assume they involve some pop culture figure and that Ms. Bee's writers have chosen to highlight the hippest references, appealing to an younger audience. 

When I don't "get it" I sometimes fire up a web browser and look it up. More often, I just mentally shrug and wait for what comes next, not really bothered by whatever I missed. 

Having an audience not be bothered to understand our references is NOT a good strategy for any writer or performer.

But I know I am guilty of "getting ahead of things" when I wax poetic about "Ted Lasso," a show that requires Apple TV to access. NO matter how earnestly I recommend the show and try to capture its appeal, the audience won't really get it until THEY see the show.

In the classroom, my solution occasionally was to bring in a video that contained the origins of whatever I felt was an indispensable cultural reference (like something from early seasons of The Simpsons). Then we could all imagine being members of "the cool kids" club.

I often argued that one reason we studied Shakespeare was so we could "get the jokes," since so many cultural references refer to the Bard.

For writers looking for cultural references, the secret is to find the "sweet spot" that works for a particular audience. If your audience is quite broad, consider avoiding certain material.

As always, it's all about audience and purpose.

American politics drowning in logical fallacies

The bulk of what passes for political "debate" these days is based on "feelings and suspicions," as far as I can tell. I see a large proportion of the Republican Party falling for a classic logical fallacy, called the "Post hoc," short for the Latin phrase "post hoc ergo propter hoc"  which means "after this, therefore because of this".  

The most frustrating and partisan arguments are about "the sanctity of the vote" and the need to protect the nation from voting fraud. 

My simple example: Trump lost the presidential election. Therefore, fraud must have been involved, since that result is not what millions of voters wanted.

The actual cause is that Biden received more votes, and no investigations have revealed widespread fraud. But it COULD happen, the argument goes, and who can oppose "the sanctity of the vote"?

Another way to think of this argument is that Republican leaders have invented a problem that demands a solution. This is termed making a "strawman argument," which is based on a false premise. The fact that such a large percentage of Republican voters are all in on the need to protect our voting from fraud could be termed the "bandwagon effect," which basically boils down to "just because a large number of people think something is true doesn't make it true."

Whew! That's a lot of logical fallacies, and maybe the brazenness and lack of logic in the arguments is what gives them so much power. 

I honestly did not want this post to become a partisan screed. If someone refuses to acknowledge clear evidence, then creating meticulous arguments about logic is doomed to fail. 

Here's what I mean, using a classic syllogism many learn in high school:

• Socrates is a man. 
• All men are mortal.
• Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Simple, right? But if someone disputes the very first line of the syllogism and refuses to accept that Socrates is a man, that pretty much wipes out the possibility of logical discussion.

For writers, developing clear cause and effect relationships is essential in creating compelling arguments.

If only we could be certain about old Socrates.

America opts to hide light under bushel

News is a funny business, as I may have mentioned earlier in this series of short blogs, and broadcast news is extremely funny (or perhaps peculiar is a better term).

The national half hour news reports have to be very careful with how they allocate their non-commercial time, which makes the job more about curating than reporting. Hardly anything from the pool of potential news stories makes the cut for each day.

Kathleen has been observing a trend on some national news reports, where each evening there has been a story about one or two hospitalized vaccine deniers. She notes that the pattern tends to be one person who regrets not getting the vaccine and who vows to do so once out of hospital. The other proudly proclaims that HE (and it's always a "he") will never take the vaccine. Death holds no fear for him, I guess.

There are all sorts of related stories, mainly with recent widows or grieving mothers telling the reporter that their family really misses (insert name of deceased anti-vaxxer here) and that she is angry that she couldn't persuade the man to get vaccinated.

What's funny about these reports, you ask? Broadcast news includes very tight "gatekeeping," or choosing what to include in the program and what to leave out. News stories about 35-year-old males in Alabama who proudly proclaim their freedom to choose and who have mild cases of Covid are just not very dramatic. Not dramatic or unusual or associated with a celebrity? You're not getting on the news, though your personal story is true.

I read today that many experts are now resigned to an ongoing pandemic that is much more dangerous to certain groups (who happen to not be well-off white people). Most of the world has decided that their patience has run out and that everyone will just have to live with high infection rates, while we continue to keep hospitalizations and deaths under control.

Humans being a somewhat irrational species, maybe a controlled "kill off" is the best we can hope for. Average life expectancy dropped about two years in the U.S. in 2020, and I assume will drop some more as the drug overdoses and Covid deaths continue to pile up.

Some Americans have opted for "I don't care" as their mantra. It sounds like being tough, though dying patients on ventilators don't seem so tough in their last moments.

So it goes.

What if we were still researching polio vaccines, 50 years later?

The FDA is still studying the Covid vaccines, leaving them in the "emergency" category that provides a handy excuse for deniers and fence-sitters.

So we find ourselves in the awkward position of one government agency in full-throated advocacy of getting "shots in arms" -- namely the CDC and the administration -- while another agency, the FDA, sending a somewhat mixed message which basically is that "no one is quite certain of the vaccine's value, efficiency, etc."

FDA officials have defended their "go slow" approach by saying that their approval of such drugs have always proceeded this way and that to go faster could damage the agency's credibility in the future.

A useful exercise is always to imagine "the worst" that could happen. After all, if the worst is bad enough, that might be useful in making decisions.

Here's today's thought experiment: imagine that the FDA tomorrow announced that the vaccine is completely safe and now moves from emergency status to "fully approved." Now imagine that in six months it is found that being vaccinated produces unexpected cancers or heart disease or whatever in a significant percentage of those vaccinated.

Would most people's first thought be to blame the FDA, saying the agency SHOULD have been more cautious? How many Americans know or care much about the FDA's history or traditions or much of anything about how the agency fully approves anything?

How many would then say they will never trust the FDA (or the CDC) again? 

Here's a guess: most Americans would have about as much trouble with a quicker decision, even if it proves to be wrong, as they have with a government that seems to be sending very different messages.

And that amount is approximately zero.

I would guess that social media influences more decisions. I would guess that what your family or neighbor or doctor tells you influences more decisions. 

We want our government to keep us safe -- well, by "we" I mean those not firmly in the Trump cult of ignorance mixed with nationalism -- but most of us prefer this to be done quietly, behind-the-scenes, without any requirement to examine the data or weigh up benefits and risks.

As writers, we need to pay attention to the effects of an unfocused argument. The federal government is not sending a clear message about vaccines, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, and therefore a casual citizen can't be blamed too much for being both confused and cautious. 

We WANT to blame them, of course, but there is value in strong arguments, well-supported and clear.

The "fog of war" aspects of vaccine approval and dissemination will lengthen the plague, at least among those in some areas of each state. I feel bad in a vague way for the health professionals whose lives continue to be at risk and whose energy and dedication have been put to extreme tests over the past 18 months. I say a "vague way" because there are all sorts of jobs I feel vaguely bad about, from stressed and under-supported teachers to sanitation workers to Uber drivers.

One part of me silently repeats: "Life sucks, and then you die." Laughing in the face of disaster is sometimes the only possible response to life.

But as for those who willfully choose ignorance and pride over common sense and science, maybe we just need to find the right "nudge" to get them to even momentarily modify their views.

A vaccinated Republican senator or representative may not be helping anyone with their constant questioning of science and stout defense of people's right to be wrong, but most of them ARE vaccinated.

Removing that "emergency" notification right now would remove an important barrier to people feeling a bit more trust in government.

Until then, the FDA going so slowly seems like a choice that will lead to more suffering and death. 

Two quick updates today: First, there is a report that the Pfizer vaccine, at least, may get formal approval in September. And, as I predicted on Monday, the market rebounded almost back to where it was last week on Tuesday. Yay me.

Today's reminder of the importance of writing for your audience

This morning, I was part of a small panel working with a teacher who has nearly completed her final project for her Masters degree from Kent State. She had to "defend" her paper, as academics like to say.

One of my first questions during this Zoom call was about the essential format of an academic paper that meets Kent State standards. I asked, "Does the graduate college prefer page-long paragraphs, specifically the abstract, which was stuffed with ideas and challenges?" 

There was another section of the report that went on for two solid pages -- with one giant paragraph.

I got a mushy response from the university leader on the call, basically saying that shorter paragraphs are OK. But it was clear that creating a readable final project did not depend upon "chunking" information, no matter how complex.

I just nodded and let it go, but I have seen enough complicated reports in my life to wonder if the point is really for ANYONE to actually read said reports.

The writer/teacher would never format or write the way she did for this project, and it occurred to me that my own students in CSU's Professional Writing course would never choose the recommended academic formatting on their own.

I'm no revolutionary, but I try to support clear, concise writing with document design that connects with readers and that highlights key points.

Academic research need not read like a series of riddles. The soon-to-be Masters student has important ideas to share with other educators and I know personally of the passion she has for teaching and for her students. I'm not sure her passions came through on the page, and that is too bad.

Here's to hoping that academic institutions can eventually shrug off the defaults of the past and the rigidity of tradition, choosing instead to favor clarity and usefulness to an audience.

Fancy that.

The sky is falling (today, anyway)

Honestly, I don't truly understand how the stock market works, other than it has gained in value over time, including the past year.

I see this morning that the Dow is down 900 points because investors are worried... about the pandemic, about lack of government responses, about less growth. And probably much more.

I assume that within a day or two the prices will start correcting, since there is little logic behind this sort of fear and that there aren't any decent options for investing money. We make pennies each month from our checking account, for instance. 

I don't need cash at this moment, so the vagaries of the market don't really matter. The advice from "professionals" is to stick to an investment strategy that makes sense and then avoid worrying about day-to-day changes. It's the big picture that counts.

Not easy to do that, of course, when the top headlines on each news site shout about the sharp plunge. 

I contrast investments in the market with how people should deal with the pandemic and vaccinations. In that case, closing your eyes and avoiding thinking about the dangers is not recommended. Professionals are close to unanimous on getting vaccinated.

My choice is to opt for expert advice rather than panic, to choose smart science over politics and skepticism.

These days, that sounds like some distant America. 

Religion often reduced to just another item in the culture wars

Today's news from the Vatican (and I honestly did not expect to begin with that phrase today or any other day): Pope Francis has renewed restrictions on churches and individual priests wishing to celebrate mass in Latin, using what is known as the Tridentine Mass. 

This has little practical impact on most attendees around the world, who are quite used to mass in their local language. But it looks like another item in the list of push and pull issues between the Catholic Church's very conservative and comparatively progressive wings. 

How can anyone be surprised that a church nearly 2,000 years old would favor slow change only (or no change at all) over quickly responding to the fashions and issues and trends of the day? Unfortunately, the American Catholic Church seems to have allowed itself to become immersed in our culture wars, with many bishops and rank and file church members somehow on the side of Trump and his clearly amoral behaviors.

On the surface, this seems to be rooted in abortion debates. When the bishops threaten a self-described devout Catholic president if he doesn't line up with official church positions on abortion, that says a lot. The logic appears to be that for some Catholics, at least, literally anyone who opposes abortion is someone to support. 

It's hard to find the line here. Would a Hitler-style leader be a step too far? Or would the church be OK with the tradeoff, say, between banning all abortions and blatantly misusing power, stealing money and influence, etc.? Are we getting close to a future where Catholic clergy start supporting fascism, as long a nation bans abortion? Are we already there?

I was an altar boy before Vatican II, so I had to memorize quite a bit of Latin to use in responses when serving mass. We were not taught the meaning of the Latin, BTW, but learned everything phonetically. Good practice for raw memory, but not very effective in teaching.

Mindless repetition of sounds disconnected from meaning never really made sense, beyond the "performance" aspect of the rituals and services. To devoutly wish to return to such mindlessness makes no sense to me, but that's where we are.

Just more "us vs. them" rhetoric, with no thoughtful discussions to help anyone find new solutions to old problems.

The golden age of documentaries gets me thinking

I celebrated my 71st birthday this past Monday, and have been watching a number of documentaries on big events in American history, all of which occurred about 50 years ago. I wasn't a key part of any of these events, other than listening to the music and seeing TV reports five decades ago, but there is something about being reminded of how much things have changed -- or not changed -- within my little slice of human history.

Last night we watched "Summer of Soul," on Hulu, which combined footage of a six-weekend series of concerts in a park in Harlem that brought thousands of black people together to enjoy music and political speeches and black culture in 1969. Woodstock overshadowed the event, and I'm sure I knew nothing about it. Oh, and we landed on the moon that summer. There were a lot of things going on, as always, so that's my excuse.

Some people may think of these historical documentaries to be merely reminders of youth or ways to escape our current problems, but I am constantly thinking, "Wow! Most of the issues that challenged America fifty years ago are still plaguing us today." 

Racism. Economic injustice. Generational fighting. Slimy politics. Immigration. 

I would never argue that NOTHING has changed, but we are certainly on a long and winding road toward a better country and world. 

One of my classroom rules was "act right." I never really had to explain that to students. Everyone sort of knew what the general expectations for behavior were, though there were times when I had to review some basics.

Most of the time, most people simply "act right," as far as I can tell. We just need to keep working to reduce the number of times people miss that basic mark.

One minor benefit of age is coming to realize that life is full of "not quite" policies, along with disappointments, unexpected jolts, and excruciatingly slow progress (and regression). Or maybe we just get worn down and a bit tired.

So my latest birthday did not produce an epiphanies or open my eyes to new ideas. But I do have "new eyes," so to speak.

Maybe I should do something with that.

There sure are a lot of "smoke participles" in the air today

In case you missed my little musings, I had cataract surgeries on both eyes (July 1 and then July 8) and had lots of trouble finding a good focus range for a computer screen. I'm still experimenting, but things are much better now in terms of sitting at the monitor. I had no pain at all, BTW, and now have "perfect" distance vision, which I have not experienced since high school.

Just a quick post to get me back in the groove today, and this concerns a headline I saw in the Denver Post nearly two weeks ago that I now can't put my hands on. But it basically stated that there was a problem with "participles" causing pollution and health issues around a small lake in Colorado. I nearly spit out my coffee when I read "participles," and when it was quite clear that the headline writers wanted "particles."

Many readers might have just shrugged and gone with it, and others might have done the quick mental editing to correct the word choice. My reaction was to silently bemoan the lack of copyeditors these days, as newspapers seek to cut costs to the bone, as well as to remind me that just because a word is in a larger point size (like headline size) that doesn't mean mistakes won't be made.

In short, a participle is formed by turning a verb into an adjective or noun. So we can have "burned" toast or "working" families. 

Every time I see an egregious headline error, I imagine professional journalism taking yet another blow to its credibility.

For student writers, these errors can immediately start an instructor questioning the overall ideas of the piece of writing. 

So, my advice is simple: take an extra 30 seconds and reread your titles (not to mention first paragraphs). Remember that the burden of being accurate is on US, as writers, not on the readers.

The weak link between memorization and behavior

Here's the lead from today's Washington Post column by Fareed Zakaria:

We’ve all read stories about how Americans don’t care about history. A few years ago, a survey found that barely 1 in 3 Americans could pass the citizenship test that is required of all immigrants seeking naturalization. But that tells us more about the decline of civics education than about what Americans value. In fact, the United States has always passionately discussed and debated its past. We are going through a particularly bitter period of contestation now, as some Americans argue for a deeper reckoning with our history and others decry what they see as efforts to denigrate the country.

I liked the strategy the writer chose in presenting a piece of information that SEEMS applicable (not to mention "everyone knows...") and then abruptly presenting a different and far more subtle argument.

Transitions are so important in good writing, and those "change of direction" transitions, like the conjunction "but," help weave our arguments into logical observations, claims and support.

Zakaria's main claim begins with the idea that being able to answer test questions might be more about studying the right things and practicing the answers (so you don't forget).

I was thinking about my four years of Latin in high school in regard to the whole "use it or lose it" theory of education. I sort of use Latin every day, since so many English words are derived from that tongue, but I'm certain I would fail even the more rudimentary test asking me to translate even a chapter of two of The Aeneid. I have a hazy memory that we did exactly that senior year, and I managed to survive the course.

But I stopped trying to translate Latin texts as part of moving on from high school... in other words, as soon as I could. 

Many Americans who are stumped by basic questions about our history once knew most of the answers. Well, that's my guess. 

Almost anyone can memorize a poem or song or speech or short piece of prose with enough time and repetition. You don't need to be a genius to rattle off the lyrics to "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General," for instance -- and I can do that -- but you need to have sung the song over and over until it becomes muscle memory.

In fact, if I stop to think about individual words or have to begin in the middle of a verse, I come to a confused stop. If I turn off the critical part of my brain, I tend to sail right through that rapid patter song from 1880. 

If the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment don't come to mind immediately when someone asks, should that be thought of as a lack of education? Heck no! That's just an indicator that you haven't had to practice repeating those ideas lately.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are most critical of those who can't recite basic facts about, well, anything, are always people who have made an effort to remember that facts. 

Of course we should all be able to answer most of the questions asked of a new American citizen, but those answers have little to do with how we behave. 

After over 50 years, on my way to new eyes

Today's post is both late and brief. I had cataract surgery on my right eye this morning. The operation is remarkably quick, once you are wheeled into the surgery room... taking less than six minutes.

Of course, there is interminable waiting involved, from the month ago when I had my exam that confirmed I really did need cataracts removed from both eyes. A new lens, designed to take care of my near-sightedness, replaced the old lens. And so, I honestly don't really understand how this works.

But bout five hours after the operation, once the dilation of my eye wore off, I found that I suddenly could see better with my right eye only while watching "Deep Space 9," on TV. I found myself closing my left eye to get the full benefit of my new clarity, but assume that will sort itself out soon. 

The left eye gets the same treatment next Thursday, at the same surgery center with the same surgeon.

It seems likely that I will not need glasses at all for distance vision, such as driving, watching TV, ballgames, etc. I may need readers for reading, working on the computer, etc. It's still early, of course, so who knows?

Once again, hats off to science. I don't need to know all the nuts and bolts or even understand much of the basic medical science that has allowed this operation to become quite safe and quite common.

I'm also quite certain that the government did not conspire with the doctor to insert a microscopic camera that allows officials to see what I see.

I also don't know exactly how the Pfizer vaccine is protecting me from Covid. Sometimes we all just need a little bit of faith.