Tales of Two...

Auckland Islands, Looking towards New Zealand

Cape Lovitt by Lawrie Mead (LawrieM) & Tony Nicklin. This image is in the Public Domain.

Joan Druett in Island of the Lost [here] brings to life the character of people who, sailing into forbidding seas, were shipwrecked on a remote island 285 miles to the south of New Zealand. She recounts how two groups deal with deprivation at the "edge of the world" in the year 1864–as current today as then. 

The tales reveal the best and most base in humanity–starkly contrasting adaptability and rigidity in the respective leaders of the groups. One group showed courage in selfless acts too many to know, a flexibility in fighting overwhelming forces, and a determination to survive–qualities largely lacking in the second group.

Part history and part immersion in human nature, the author finds her stride early to bring to life the events and voices of the individuals, through her carefully creative interpretation of journals and other research. She relates the true tales of two groups, who were castaway and unaware of each other's existence, at different ends of the same island. Each took a different approach to making decisions and to finding shelter or food–with consequently different outcomes. 

Powerful recreations of ships, sea, storms, islands, vegetation, sea lions, bird-life, and other creatures are described in graphic detail, along with the cruelty needed to survive. Druett melds seamlessly the records of events within descriptions of the island setting, to illustrate how the castaways cope, insightfully sharing the thoughts and actions of people facing extreme challenges to their lives. 

The smaller group of castaways celebrate human savvy in undertaking hard efforts, using limited tools retrieved from their shipwreck–foraging for food, building shelter, and sustaining spirits. As leader of this group, Captain Musgrave provides encouragement, requiring times of relaxation as needed. He seems as a leader to appreciate when to lean in with guidance and when to cheer initiative. For 18-months, Captain Musgrave and his group withstood the isolation and deprivation through adaptation, ingenuity, and cooperative efforts. 

A larger group of castaways, who were shipwrecked four months after Musgrave's group, fared much less well. Their tale, as one reviewer remarked, was in some ways like an adult version of Lord of the Flies. From their shipwreck at the foot of cliffs through later events, this group's lethargic treks and decisions too late or not at all accumulate failure after failure in taking the actions needed for survival. With the low energy and inflexibility of this second group and its official leader, you can broadly predict why their tale would be so different–with just one seaman having the resourcefulness needed to face such dire circumstances. 

The detail of the narration is engaging. The book also describes norms of master-servant relations of the time, notes the behaviors of government officials, and chronicles some subsequent history of this "graveyard for ships." Lessons emerge naturally from the recreation of a distant time, in a far-away place, through deftly reimagined conversations and events that are freshly relevant today. 

When the world waits and watches from elsewhere, tales of survival offer possibility for hope. But they also highlight the limits to being able to survive alone. 

Homage

Cattle Graze in an Iowa Field

by Preston Keres/US Dept of Agriculture. This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-USGov}}

George Orwell concluded his Homage to Catalonia with a reflection on his return to England, "earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico... [the people] ...all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England… [will be] …jerked out of it by the roar of bombs."

This was 1937, when Orwell returned from a harrowing time as a volunteer in the fight against real fascists, during the Spanish War. Although it's not possible now to know just how, greater efforts at that time to weaken or defeat the fascists could have seen the events from 1939 onwards unfold very differently.

It was not only England that was sleeping. Throughout a world still slowly recovering from a Great Depression, in rural areas, cities, and towns, people on farms and in offices and factories sought peace of mind for a better life–while leaders of the Axis Powers secretly made massive preparations for conquest. 

Their first forays with bombs and troops were to take control of countries as staging areas for further conquest. 

The world waited and watched from elsewhere, until the disparate and distracting debates, increasingly influenced by members of the Fifth Column telling smart-sounding lies, could no longer shield elected representatives from duty to protect homelands. Compelled by overwhelming circumstances, people worldwide progressively woke from sleep to harrowing years of action.

Foremost among what was different then was that Hitler from very early so completely lied about his intentions.

Neighbors

Napoleon in Exile at St Helena

by Helen Leah Reed. This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

Much like family, we don't usually get to pick our neighbors. Pleasant times spent with a neighbor chatting and sharing stories, drinks, or a meal provide a sense of belonging, security, and peace of mind within immediate and familiar surroundings–extending the valued bubble of comfort and security of home that anyone should be able to expect. 

Some neighbors become life-long friends. Some take on the care of houseplants or pets when we travel. Looking out for each other and caring about someone else are good qualities in folks we'd call good neighbors.

Of course, in different ways tough on everyone are those neighbors only interested in themselves. Least troublesome are the ones who keep to themselves. But the one or two who dispute the fence-line, push too much, or make a lot of noise or worse are the flip-side. 

More widely in the world they're often mocked or illustrated as ridiculous but dangerous, frighteningly real compared to the cartoon characters their actions prompt. 

I recall a Donald Duck cartoon strip in which Donald got his feathers so greatly in a flap with his neighbor that they each frantically built fences higher and higher on their adjacent fence-line, to outdo each other.

Eventually, the fences were many times higher than their homes, bending and swaying from the height of the fences that Donald and his neighbor were atop and still building, when the cartoonist summoned a tornado to whisk both fences away onto a nearby body of water–there to serve as life-rafts for passengers escaping a ferry that was overturned by the same tornado–such is the power of the cartoonist's pen to find a good ending to madness.

The longer that dangerous actions are allowed, the greater the harm for everyone.

The Cons

Wirkung eines Zerrspeigels

by Xocolatl. This image is in the Public Domain.

It's all done with mirrors. A once-famous columnist for a still-famous newspaper probably had this saying in mind when he speculated more than half a century ago about writing the ideal all-purpose political speech–by appealing to anyone who's committed to any side of just about any issue. He went further to write, tongue-in-cheek I hope, his own best effort toward earning "the supreme accolade: 'Nobody can quarrel with that.'"

It's worrisome that he was also a presidential speechwriter for five years in an administration not noted for covering itself in glory. While the columnist's name might not matter any more, the sentiment does, whether or not the original motivation was mainly comic. The columnist proffered that the way to earn the "supreme accolade" was to craft words that permitted political candidates "to take firm stands on all sides of every issue." What's happened to political language since elevates this cheeky comment to seriously worrisome.

We all long ago let ourselves get used to propaganda washing over us every day in every way. Perhaps it's not surprising that, for too many decades in this country, some generators of political language have borrowed and "improved" the techniques that Madison Avenue found sufficiently useful to convince us to buy not this but that soap, toothpaste, food, car, college, or you-name-it. 

As expressed in the spirit of the original remarkably pseudo-scientific gibberish, these advertising techniques were built on "measuring subjects' reactions to messages." In the 1950s, this was done by observing eye dilations and other physiological reactions to "messages"–methods that long ago found their way into politics, with the aim of delivering more certainty in the effect of words.

So-called research data are now gathered from electrodes on potential voters who listen to political speeches, to determine the "right words" for the use of these words uniformly in talking points across a political party. This makes addressing people's real needs irrelevant–with too many in the media then repeating the juicy parts of the talking points verbatim! Anyone who doesn't think this cringeworthy and wrong on so many levels has a long way to climb back to decent human values.

The easier propagandists to call out are those who say the outright opposite of what they do. But these still seem to attract more media attention for what is said rather than done–maybe because the lie is more colorful and comes pre-packaged in a media release. Hyperbole or even mild exaggeration combined with provocative ambiguity is a headline-writer's dream, whether connected to reality or not.

More challenging is the conjurer of euphemism or maestro of the mealy-mouthed, especially those urging politicians to talk to us about "security," "peace of mind," "results," "renewal," "independence," and a litany of words being promoted into conversational currency, without the matching actions to accomplish laudable ideals. Such as "transparency" or better still "accountability" for example! Now, these sound like promising thoughts–and is it too much to ask that the legislators, judiciary, and others, who've sworn real oaths to do so, actually take the steps needed to "secure our peace of mind by getting a result of some accountability, to deliver a renewal of democracy and individual independence"–at more than buggy-speed in a nano-world!? The come-ons and put-offs become encyclopedic, as the news cycle moves on. 

As messages are being shaped and shared for yet another election, it's a good time to see the hucksters for who they are. Just like the about-to-be-bankrupt person in business projects confidence, even bombast, to reassure an unfortunate target to invest in a yet-again just-wonderful opportunity, so too will the political propagandist. 

Waking to every day's news that includes some fearfully absurd figures, it's a time to look for what's real behind the images. Computerized propaganda has just kept improving its targeting too. And foreign state-sponsored efforts remain. So, here are some suggested rules-of-thumb to take action on, after reaching for a second cup of coffee each morning during the coming months:

1. Vote when you can.

2. Find people in your neighborhood or circle of friends and relatives, of whatever party affiliation, who believe in democracy–put aside differences, and form a coalition of ongoing-working-consultation to take actions to strengthen democracy together–and count on doing this for a long while. 

3. Laugh at and/or stand up to the puffed-up and self-opinionated autocrat, whether local or (if you're able) international.

4. Write a letter (not a tweet) to your elected representatives, requesting action on something you care about, asking for and expecting a reply, and following up if you don't get one, until you do get a satisfactory (not mealy-mouthed) reply.

5. Recognize grift-language–if it really seems to be everywhere, ignore it if it looks harmless enough for now, and call it out when it's not.

6. Secure a funhouse mirror (by analogy) to hold up and show to others, yes anyone who'll listen, just how distorted and far from the common good of normalcy that the words and actions of autocrats travel.

6. Re-re-read writers like Jacques Ellul and Randal Marlin, referenced in earlier blog-posts.

7. Laugh a Lot.

Tearing down grifters and their propaganda requires more than occasionally switching off the media and tech devices, although this might help gain some perspective. 

Most seriously, any of us needs to take time to hold up a mirror to propaganda, to make out what's real, past the reverse/distorted images–like we do with a funhouse mirror at the sideshow, to look for the reality that's being distorted.

Not that all of this will be possible or always work, but reinforcing critical inquiry and informed challenge will prove way better than bathing every day in the distortions of people whom you'd not otherwise open your door to. 

And, if enough of us believe in doing good within democracy, and communicate well, democracy will thrive.

Honestly

Fishermen Unloading their Catch at Portmagee

© 

Copyright Frank Donovan is licensed for reuse under 

creativecommon.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Expected on full display off the coast of Ireland this week will be a contrast of values. With the deadly armaments of war-gamers potentially endangering Irish fishermen, it is real values and not pretense that will be clear to the world. 

The war-gamers are set to fire naval artillery and rockets 150 miles off the Irish coast in international waters, but within the Irish exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Pat Murphy and his fellow fishermen have caught the attention of many worldwide, for promising to do what they've always done on the first of February–namely, work the fishing grounds off the coast of Ireland, from the start of the season.

What's clear already is that when Pat Murphy says he's not moving aside for war-gamers, you'd better believe it. He and a fellow fisherman made this known, armed only with maps of the fishing grounds, during a visit with the war-gamers' ambassador to Ireland. 

Unsurprisingly, the two parties' readouts of this meeting, which were later given to the media, were different concerning a key undertaking–with the ambassador's public statement contradicting his private guarantee of safety given to Murphy. Mr Murphy reportedly responded that he takes the ambassador's public comment as "a threat and an insult." As my Irish grandfather quipped more than once, there are no degrees of honesty.

As with most events of this type that involve devotees to war who are reported in the media, the slippery treatment of truth, half-truth, and myth will keep evolving as the coming week(s) unfold. This casual relationship with truth of warmongers, and war-gamers also apparently, was evident even before the first edition in 1975 of Phillip Knightley's revelatory The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq.

It's to be hoped the war-gamers might temporarily escape their own view of the world to know that an Irish fisherman named Pat Murphy will keep his word–he and his compatriots will be fishing and "not moving aside," when the war-gamers commence their dangerous maneuvers on Thursday, local time. 

Just how many generations of Murphy families have fished off the Irish coast isn't clear. And which Murphy family would you be talking about, you might ask.  

Population experts would likewise have a hard time guessing the scale of various extensions of the Murphy families and their countryfolk throughout the world. Estimates based on the rates with which Irish migrants in this country and elsewhere marry out of the Irish community, and extend the sharing of Irish values, would give some idea of this. Yet another clue could be the readership of books about Ireland, including How the Irish Saved Civilization–which tend to fly off the shelves of bookshops and libraries.

What the world is seeing many will consider a further repeat of what Sir Winston Churchill acknowledged as a "sorry history" of the Emerald Isle, so often subjected to intimidation and, in earlier times, invasion!

Whatever happens this week, many millions within and beyond Irish families, in a great many countries worldwide, will feel unity with Mr Murphy and his fellow fishermen.

[FOOTNOTE UPDATE, February 1, 2022: The Irish Echo has reported "...the Russians have now said that they will relocate their naval exercises, though to exactly where is not clear. But they apparently won't now be staged in the Irish EEZ."]

Pundit Propaganda

Barnum & Bailey clowns, geese, roosters, and donkey

by The Strobridge Litho. Co./Library of Congress (restored, rotated & cropped).

This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

Propagandist Pundits play too much with our perception. Will such folks ever appreciate that if we really do hanker for the current equivalent of performing geese, roosters, & a musical donkey, we'll find a real circus.

NOT talking here about the so obvious pundits whom we regrettably notice too much–these are the self-servers, who routinely speak conspiracy lies, or so much that's outrageous, that, if they had a moral compass, or any of the faith that some of them claim, their comments would surely head them hellward. NOR those mentioned recently in an opinion article in the newspaper, which suggested that pundits should own up when they get something wrong, just like the rest of us do, when inevitably in life we make a mistake.

Important as those are to address, more important are pundits who try to put truthful perspective, yet fail. And these pundits are important because of their potential! These are the folks who too often fail by being unwitting propagandists, constantly parroting the words and claims of some grifter, charlatan, propagandist, or other pretender–thereby publicizing the pretender's original claims. Particularly dangerous and destructive to democracy now are these prevalent and persistent pundits.

Ever since the first televised presidential debates in the United States in 1960, we've known that pundits who soon afterwards comment on what public figures say have more power than the original remarks. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, this was already apparent as long ago as 1943, when the brilliant pundit Martin Esslin–well before he famously described the theater of the absurd–participated in counter-propaganda radio broadcasts. His role was to immediately analyze Hitler's speeches, and Esslin's analyses–which were unfavorable to the Nazis–were broadcast in German into occupied countries, where people were allowed to listen only to radio broadcasts in German.    

Today, we need more pundits who use their own words more, to comment truthfully, positively, and plainly. To do this, many need to stop repeating the language of pretenders. For example, when will people's attraction to alliteration give way to sense? Should be plain as day that, if you keep quoting the audience-tested, much propagated slogan "St** the St***," you're helping the propagandist by spreading bad words (and lies) again, and again, and again, etc. And, it should be just fine for moderators on broadcast media or editors in the print media to use different words to challenge this as propaganda. No different than the responsibility to prevent dissemination of libel and slander, and unchecked propaganda is at least as dangerous.

Dear Pundit, if you really must have a slogan to repeat, or a bumper sticker to put up somewhere prominently, how about the alliterative "Stop the Stupid." Or, instead of still repeating "no fr**d was found," just dump the negatives–and say what's Fair for Freedom of thought, speech, and association. It's simple to do, when you remember what's at stake.

But apparently these pundits feel purified by putting a negative in front of their free publicity for some pretender–whom they ironically often decry–then do detailed forensics, reusing the pretender's fantasy verbiage, and repeat the original words and claims endlessly, sometimes putting "not" in front; mistakenly believing that "not" has some power that it actually lacks.

For example, if I said to you "Don't WALK on the grass," likely you'd hear most prominently the verb "walk" and what follows it, even if I'd not capitalized=shouted this verb, or if I'd used "not" instead of the barely noticeable contraction ...n't! Have you noticed also that verbs are more powerful in getting our attention than nouns and negatives... or just about any other bit of language. Since this imperative or instruction form of the verb is especially powerful and attention-getting because it rarely occurs in conversation, there's added inclination for your brain to totally ignore the negative and hear something more like "Go ahead, you (or y'all) go walk on the grass!!"

Out of habit, or dancing around legalisms, or ignorance, or just being lazy though, people do negate or double-negate comments, all the time. Some even double-negate themselves into insulting followers, as was reported recently.

It really is simple to rephrase or paraphrase, to purify the puerile and pernicious. How about just saying "X & Y have occurred, and Z suggests/ed this remedy..." instead of the usual pattern, "This killer fog that I'm showing you again and again will not go away anytime soon." Maybe cross the street, so-to-speak, to find someone who will offer a remedy to pursue, rather than continuing to provide a platform for some "Desdemona-downer" pretender! Or, for additional thoughts on what language to use, please re-check George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language."

It's not only preference for the positive that prompted this post. Among Jacques Ellul's warnings about propaganda is an alert to what he called social propaganda. This most powerful propaganda drives automatic behavior, triggered from the assumptions and norms wrapped within the context and language that we swim in everyday. Even if you're not perturbed about the impact of all these "nots" not-not-negating us into nothingness or worse, media bullhorns that repeat foul fantasies and pretense just perpetuate the mind warp first intended. 

Anyway, please consider that a great many people are just plain tired of hearing all the swamp talk of pretenders repeated. Surely, it's time to find a better way to call out the putrid and the puerile? How about perorating the promising? Now there's a prospect!  

A pundit is supposed to be, and is often paid to be, well, better–with an opinion to share, with perspective and precision. So, please, can this include putting a stop to promoting drivel?

Surf

 

Kawana, Australia

by Finnrussell99 is licensed under CCA-SA-4.0 International

New Year for a couple of decades marked the final stage of three-weeks at the beach when growing up. Apart from a few seasonal celebrations, visits with relatives or friends, and some movies, this annual vacation was a time of uninterrupted surfing, of both waves and words. 

Early every morning in a land of endless summer, the family carried beach umbrella, rolled-up beach mat, towels, boogie boards, sunglasses, sunscreen, drink-containers, and of course books, to trek in caravan formation across sand-hills and the already hot beach sand–to find just the right spot, between the flags placed by the lifesavers to mark the area safe for swimming.

The morning was spent in the surf–after a quick survey of what the previous night's tides and weather had set as the surfing terrain, to make safe navigation across any deep gutters, rip-currents, or sandbars–out far, to where serious waves gathered–there to catch a deeply rolling swell the long distance to shore, riding on its final curl and roll onward to the beach. 

Swimming with the swell to catch a wave more than two-to-three-times one's height was learned early, for an exhilarating ride as close as you'd hope to the beach. Sometimes, misjudged timing delivered an additional lesson as a human cork, tumbling in the wave or hitting the sand hard, with eyes wide open underwater, shrouded with flurries of white bubbles and sand clouds, until breaking the surface for air. Eventually we'd come back to the beach umbrella and outspread towels, talking and reading, until returning home for lunch. 

During the long hot afternoons, in separate places–indoors, under trees, or in the sand-hills, lots of reading revealed more than the year's schooling about how words work. Being carried along by words for the afternoon was different but in some ways similar to the morning's experience riding the waves.

Even from everyday Aussie talk, we were well primed to be curious about exploring language, often encountering analogy, rhyming substitutions, abbreviation, imaginative omission, and lots of figurative language. Not everywhere in the world will you hear the phrase "like a lizard drinking" with everyone around you understanding this translates to "busy"–because a lizard lies "flat out" busily drinking at the billabong... and it's commonly known that a billabong is a particular type of watering hole and not a surfing reference, despite the confusion created by this now also being a popular brand-name for surfing gear and clothing. 

Or, how many people do you know who, out of the blue, refer to a best friend and/or spouse as "china plate," or just "china," or "plate"? Of course, Cockneys and Aussies know what this is because there's a rhyme with "mate," and everyone knows what that means, right! These are some of what are better known among quite a large trove of Australian/"Oz-talk"–now, that's "clear as mud" you might say, but will you routinely put these and many more language adaptations and adoptions, one after another continuously in every sentence you speak? No wonder that John O'Grady, writing under his pseudonym Nino Culotta, sold so many copies of They're a Weird Mob–a 1957 comic novel about an Italian immigrant to Oz trying to work all this out. And, then there's Frank Hardy's irreverently humorous satire The Outcasts of Foolgarah–which would require too many blog posts to translate from Oz-talk, however imprecisely.

Later, it was kind of surprising to find thoughtful authors, mainly from Europe or North America, who bothered to write entire books about tropes, rhetorical style, slang, or colorful language. Mostly these authors were interested in how words are used differently in different places, or for different purposes. It didn't take long to catch curiosity about how we shape words and words shape us–which also primed curiosity about how a writer like Dylan Thomas opened a path to sounds, sights, and insights [here in 5 minutes, "Poem in October" and "In My Craft or Sullen Art," read by the poet]. Or, of his walk in winter Quite Early One Morning, describing a seaside Welsh village and its people waking to another day [here in less than 13 minutes], as he makes intriguing entrances to unfamiliar scenes and feelings, via his unique rhythm, symbols, and density of lyrical language. 

Then Charles Darwin describing human origins in language attentive to his wife's deeply different faith, to an eye-opening James Baldwin telling it on the mountain, to "Rabbie" Burns's reshaping songs and stories of Scotland, to Judith Wright visualizing the Australian bush, to Halldor Laxness's vision of independence, to the wit of Wislawa Szymborska, and so many other worlds of words.

Along the way, seeds from the thoughtful authors on rhetoric and language style progressively grew further curiosity–so it continues–recently and enjoyably, with much thanks to a friend, who pointed out yet another thoughtful author known on his weblog as The Inky Fool. This is Mark Forsyth, who dives into, if you'll allow the metaphor, oceans of words... and, who seems to have way too much fun with explanations of etymology, syntax, semantics, and rhetoric.

For anyone even a little interested in stretching understandings of what words can do, Mr. Forsyth, with an energy worthy of a surfer, dives into allusion, Diacope, and other examples of rhetorical style, to explain how apparently everyday language in movies or songs, or other word experiences, manage to carry us along.

If this is the nearest that a lexicographer comes in an armchair to surfing waves of words, good luck to us all. You can join in, and hopefully enjoy starting the year with one of his videos... here

Happy New Year.

The Back-seat Driver

Passenger Compartment, Rambler Ranch

1967 AMC Ambassador DPL Convertible

by CZmarlin is licensed under CCA-SA-4.0 International

Did you ever experience in the years before COVID-19, when driving a vehicle with seats fully occupied, the occasional passenger–usually from the back seat–who instructed the best time to brake, or turn, or accelerate, or which route to take? 

One of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic is the effective disappearance of this individual from many vehicles, mainly because sane people no longer tend to take weekend drives or carpool with lots of passengers.

Unfortunately, not to be suppressed by anything serious like a pandemic, this impulse to instruct from the back seat has visibly increased in other places. 

You might have noticed there seem now to be a very large number of people suddenly qualified in their minds to judge how test kits and vaccines can be magically produced and distributed, how the virus works, what are the effective remedies, what safety protocols should pertain, how hard done by they are compared to everyone else, and the list goes on. 

Somehow, this infects some media talkshow hosts, and program anchors, and reporters, and Mr or Ms Interviewee, all of whom–as quickly and uninformed as a back-seat driver–megaphone their snappy instructions or question the efforts of health care workers, government, and everyone else, without reference to or any apparent knowledge of realities like production and delivery, or of surges in demand set off by panic.

Perhaps it's unsurprising that health care workers in some hospitals are now being issued body armor, yes, kevlar jackets, etc., etc., as protection from incoming patients who react violently to having their barmy treatment instructions denied.

Ignoring the back-seat driver apparently no longer works. What to do? What happened to working together to defeat a common enemy, namely the virus! 

Perhaps to paraphrase Pogo, it's time to address the enemy within who is us?

Where's the Outrage?

Sydney Harbour Bridge & Opera House Fireworks

by Linh_rOm is licensed under CCA-BY-2.0 Generic

Perhaps the most substantial failure in public communication during recent decades is the not-so-combined effort to counter the death-cult of anti-vax and anti-mask propagandists, in the United States and more widely.

Since the first vaccinations against COVID commenced one year ago yesterday in this country, we've been presented with countless images on television and social media that show people being jabbed with a needle. 

The media latched on to this image early. The first person vaccinated on national TV here was a nurse, who had the good sense immediately afterwards to clap her hands and nonverbally try to convey joy, as best she could from behind her mask. On-screen vaccinations of some national leaders and a few celebrities progressively followed, laudably showing the right thing to do. Then a strange series of giveaways and gimmicks were popped in front of viewers as incentives–thereafter followed continuous urgings to vaccinate, alongside repeated diatribes on dire consequences of not vaccinating.

One year later when dealing with COVID, what remains as the dominant visual on all media here is the image of needles going into arms–this is NOT enticing, even possibly for masochists. Conjecturing that this contributes some ad populum appeal is just too feeble to treat seriously.

Worse still, this visual sets the frame for the sometimes white-coated experts urging vaccination. The only other visual much apparent is a tufted ball ominously floating through some micro-universe, presumably to represent COVID magnified under a microscope, and on its way to infecting someone. Does anyone really think this conveys confidence in science?

As the world continues to face the worst pandemic in living memory, what is outrageous is the failure to learn from so many well-documented, successful public health campaigns–strategies and insights readily available from decades of encouraging better behaviors on smoking, drink-driving, skin-cancer prevention, swimming pool fencing, and a host of other public health concerns. 

Among the many early anti-smoking campaigns that failed to work were some blanket representations of dire consequences from smoking, with dramatically graphic visuals failing to change behavior.  As with any communication, creatively anticipating varieties of interpretation matter, along with testing of draft "messaging." Surely, we can do better now!

Wherever you're reading this, feel free to comment on the extent to which public communication is helping or otherwise your nation's efforts to vaccinate–which, so far, is the only way to make us all safe.

Most importantly, ask your leaders and media what each will do to help.

Hoping that you keep safe over the festive season--and let's wish for 2022 to bring better!

Fall in the Suburbs

Cinnamon Bear Cub Tackles Garbage

by Gillfoto is licensed under CCA-SA 4.0 International

At this time each year with foliage fallen, in the early morning half-light, animated shadows take the shape of deer hearing a noise inaudible to others, and, looking up from grazing on their favorite garden beds, turn tail to scatter, clattering across the bitumen of neighborhood roads.

In this season, human suburbanites bring out a bevy of bird-feeders, multiplying the offerings of seed and suet to help the birds, and the inevitable squirrels and chipmunks, through the winter. 

On sunny days, a shadow sensed overhead causes birds and the smaller creatures to freeze like stalagmites, alert to a predator hawk's survey before its dive-through swoop. At times, a bear, or bobcat, or quick red fox will be glimpsed crossing the fallen leaves, attending to pre-winter foraging. Hunkering down and preparing for what's to come are instincts strongly sustained by suburbanized animals–and, this is also somewhat true of their human neighbors. 

A not-so-mythical Neighbor Jones attends to outdoor chores to prepare home for winter. Apparently a keen role model, Jones keeps right up to date with the latest garden tools, gutter guards, and any advertised gizmo needed for such responsibility. A dimming memory of Aesop's fables, or James Thurber's stories, fables, and cartoons, or quips of Ogden Nash might keep some suburbanites' feet on the ground, but Jones captures currency with TV and social media clicks and swipes.

This very modern commander of what is popular frequently forages the advertised specials, to keep ahead of the outdated. With dopamine that advertising and media have stimulated in the brain for more seasons than remembered, Jones is ritually separated from conscious thought. Gilbert and Sullivan's very model modern-major-general could not compete with such an embodiment of the media's key goal, which is to have more people diligently spending more time on the media.

So runs the theme of an intriguing book, Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warp Our Minds, recently launched by a practicing journalist, John Zada. This is not a new suggestion. Vance Packard was the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, pointing to advertising practices in books like The Hidden Persuaders in the 1950s. In the next decade, Jacques Ellul alerted to the power of social propaganda, which predisposes us to respond to the most unremarkable drivel. And, many more since.

What's refreshing within Zada's insights, beyond his being employed in the news media and daring to critique the news media, are observations on how it is that what gets treated as news are aberrations from real life for most people–and, how this news sets an increased appetite for reports of the bizarre, the dangerous, and the outlier, which ever since people existed we are keen to know about. Zada describes a variety of added touches that degrade the news as "info-tainment." 

He suggests that this "news" crowds out reality. The news media just keep on obsessively covering mainly outlier incidents to infer a besieged, beleaguered world, contrary to what most people might ever experience. And, for all this churning invention of an apocalyptic fantasy, news media outlets in fierce competition with each other are competing for an ever-diminishing pool of followers, as droves of potential readers and viewers choose to spend time elsewhere–little wonder!

Yet, without the persistently professional investigations of journalists, much malfeasance of elected officials would never be known. And, journalists deploy information gathering and writing abilities within standards of the profession, media management, audience interests, and other constraints that would paralyze many people. The regularity of finding and getting to us items that might be truly fit to print or to broadcast is an ever-changing landscape, ever-demanding on talent, patience, persistence, politeness, and a host of other positive human qualities.  

Zada seeks to avoid taking cheap shots at his colleagues though. He defines various types of "fake news" precisely, including as disinformation, and alerts to the supercharged impact of the news media as servants of conspirators and other disinformation merchants, by obligingly amplifying their existence, activities, and messages. Such "reporters," hyped by dopamine of their own making, highlight extreme details of disinformation merchants to ensure a "news piece" gets passed through the news organization's internal gatekeepers for publication or broadcast. 

Zada points out that Aric Toler has noted news media magnify the reach of disinformation "way beyond anything Moscow could achieve by itself." Likewise, touched on is how news media ever so regularly cover grifter and charlatan politicians, massively expanding the reach of their propaganda. He points to the role of PR as propaganda and many other aspects of "churnalism" in the "news factory."

While this book mainly probes a great many examples of the distortions to offer diagnosis of the why, how, and what that drive the news and the consumers of news, he does touch on "what to do." Zada's brief concluding suggestions for action, understandably perhaps, are mostly geared to those in the media, with some suggestions quite doable and others less so. At least, unlike the litany of diagnostics and forensics offering no remedy that most publishers continue to launch upon us, he makes the attempt. But, while an interesting read, clearly this is not enough. 

Unfortunately, warnings are not remedies–and, in the United States and many other countries, it is in the disinformation land of the suburbs that elections are so often decided. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that the old claim that the news informs to develop an informed electorate, for example, just isn't true. And, apart from a relatively few notable bright-lights in the media, op-eds and cable channel megaphones don't much help.

So, who will offer more than is needed of what really matters? Namely, support for the ongoing fights to sustain freedoms of thought, speech, and association. For a start, this includes putting an even brighter spotlight on the actions needed yesterday to

* codify the much talked about guardrails of democracy, with prompt and vigorous prosecution of violators

* dismantle propaganda everywhere possible

* replace the grifters and charlatans who currently are making "news" with what the decent, elected representatives are actually doing, rather than what they're wrangling about doing 

* use the undoubted power of the media to creatively develop analytic and critical abilities among all generations.

Before too many naysayers line up, let's remember what the media can do when truly creative individuals have a go. Long-running are some genuine accomplishments of media organizations partnering with initiative-takers, to bring freshness in some areas beyond the news–often with very young audiences, like Sesame Street, Play School, and Blue Peter.  

Who will invent the next new, new thing that enlivens the ongoing fights for freedoms of thought, speech, and association?

Remembrance

World War I veteran Joseph Ambrose, 86 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982

by Mickey Sanborn, Department of Defense, National Archives. 

This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-USGov-Military}}

United through invisible links stronger than titanium are people who live in genuine democracies worldwide. Regardless of local or national differences, consistently valued is the appreciation of freedom.

At certain times of the year, at home, school, or workplace, we pay tribute to all who have saved so many countries from tyranny. We pause in memory of the veterans who served, so that we live free; and we experience again the truth that sanity may rule, when tyrants don't. 

This year at 11 am, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the "complete suspension of all our normal activities" to observe two-minutes of silence felt specially significant, with remembrance genuinely reaffirmed at the national level.

Likewise, much appreciated from across the miles was a friend's email with spectacular photos attached of poppies projected onto the shell-like sails of the Sydney Opera House. [here] 

The email referred also to what Country Life in the UK has described as "a mammoth new work recounting the First World War, week by week... a rich tapestry of courage, camaraderie and love." The four-volume publication titled As We Were, at over 2,200 pages by David Hargreaves and Margaret-Louise O'Keeffe, reminds of the pain, dignity, and contradictions of a war that was touted to end all wars. This work is well reviewed by David Crane in The Spectator, 27 February 2021. [here] 

The huge loss and efforts in 20th century wars especially, along with the losses and sacrifices of veterans in too many wars since, link us in a legacy of commitment to sustain freedoms of thought, speech, and association–within democracies. Lest we forget.

Thylacine

Thylacinus cynocephalus, 1863

by John Gould (1804-1881), Mammals of Australia, Vol 1 Plate 54. 

This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

No longer seen and mostly under-appreciated was Thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger because of its striped lower back. 

Since this carnivore ceased to roam the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea, and the Australian mainland, its continuing claims to fame include supporting the official coat of arms for the State of Tasmania, being appropriated on a beer label, and, more recently, featuring as a character in a video game. 

This presumed extinct marsupial is sometimes confused with a different marsupial, popularized by the Looney Tunes cartoon as the whirling carnivore, the Tasmanian Devil. However, Thylacine was not equipped for high speed running, and could briefly do a hop on hind legs, similar to a kangaroo. 

It's a stretch to draw much comparison with William Blake's description of the Asian "tyger's... fearful symmetry," since, according to Wikipedia, Thylacine was known in the wild and in captivity just to growl and hiss when agitated, exhibit a threat-yawn, and when hunting give rapidly repeated guttural cough-like barks. 

Unambiguously a predator though, it was able to open its jaws to an unusual extent, and likely relied on sight and sound in its nocturnal hunting, mainly of large ground-dwelling birds. The decline in population of these birds, resulting from human hunting of the same birds, might have correlated with the demise of the Thylacine in the wild.

Despite the doubts that scientists have expressed more recently about the strength of Thylacine's jaws to deal with more than the light bones found in birds and smaller animals, rumors occurred in earlier times about the Tasmanian Tiger attacking sheep. In any case, the fate of this interesting and extinct creature seems to confirm Thomas Hobbes's relativities of life in nature as "nasty, brutish, and short," especially if competing with human beings. 

Growing up in Australia, my reading included the weekly Nature Notes in a local newspaper by David Fleay, whose legacy included one of the few movie-clips we have of this extinct animal. Thanks to the life-long efforts of trailblazers like Fleay, who first bred the Platypus and other native species and developed initiatives to protect endangered species, what people can do individually and collectively to advance such efforts is now more in the spotlight.

Which puts perspective on public communication more broadly today. Amid the endless articles and books that review the last five years of America's political decay, a nagging concern is that even the best of these do little more than uncover malign activity, and put a laser focus on diagnosis. 

Journalists and pundits, in the United States at least, reveal the disaster that's continuing like a cancer, eating away at the democratic system in unsubtle ways. The open question remains who will address treatment regimens? Where are today's Orwell and Ellul to point the way to remedy? Where are the young, savvy individuals who have the chops to execute needed change?

As both education and the vote became more generally available over recent centuries, regrettably almost in parallel, educational curricula jettisoned the teaching of grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric to make room for many educators' pet and sometimes important subjects. Dorothy Sayers highlighted this trend as commencing well before her 1947 address to a Vacation Course in Education at Oxford, which was later published as The Lost Tools of Learning. 

Recent generations were sometimes able to remedy their schooling's neglect of English grammar through later study of Latin, French, or other languages, but mostly had to rely on self-education for logic, or smatterings of dialectics and rhetoric. As a result of this myopia in education, as Sayers noted, the ability to differentiate "fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible" declined.

It's unsurprising then, that the misinformation we are living through includes what some journalists and pundits so gratuitously and erroneously propagate and bemoan as a "lack of bipartisanship." This ready catch-cry often props up a media report, and misses the point.

Regrettably, in the United States and apparently in other places around the world, what we now have, and ought to vigorously address in every way possible, is better described as "null-partisan politics" or more simply, "monolog." Masquerading as populism, its devotees are nearest to anarchists or nihilists in ideology, with primary commitment to self.

It's time to call out occasions that pose as debate, but are really about nullifying civil society. When talk occurs at a tangent to addressing the public good, whether or not it's manufactured outrage, it offers nothing useful to society; it is monolog and should be shown to be. This absurdity of public communication needs dismantling, and disentangling from its pretense as debate. The continuing reality seems to be that the monolog vacuum of "NO" is what we hear in response to proposed initiatives to address people's needs. 

It requires creativity to expect better and to call on the vacuous to do better. It's more than time to spotlight this sad scene in our public communication; which, in some ways, is akin to when one child goes to a playground and is only able to sit alone and immobilized on one end of a see-saw, because no one else turns up to sit on the other end of the see-saw.

Too many elected representatives now seem to believe that the role of each individual elected member is to clamor for their own monolog on the media (a very 80s and 90s concept, if ever a useful activity), keen to be on any TV, or radio, or podcast, or social media, often in tandem with propagating slurs and rumors. And, a wide variety of partisan or not-so-partisan media oblige, spreading sometimes wildly dangerous fantasies, as if this constitutes news or is otherwise of interest. 

Will we ever see social media and other media satisfactorily self- or otherwise regulated to take responsibility for content seriously? Will we ever see educational systems that sufficiently prepare new generations with the abilities needed to discern, analyze, criticize, and synthesize reality?

So, taking the fate of the Tasmanian Tiger as analogy, if you'd like a future that's better than just being a memory within a coat of arms, beer label, or video game, best get prepared for the wilds of no-debate land–a Wild West where the norms that rule are drawn from anachronisms like the rancher's open range and pitiful imitations of the Marlboro Man.

Light, or No...

George Orwell, c. 1940 (1903-1950)

by Cassowary Colorizations is licensed under CCA 2.0 Generic

Have you ever wondered why some people convey a sense of optimism, energy, or other positive feelings when they speak? Often it's a smile, or eye contact, or attentiveness with facial or another nonverbal cue that puts a ray of sunlight into a conversation. 

Also though, it's the words we choose that help shape such feelings. Even after the passage of so many years, inspiring speakers like Martin Luther King Jr, Sir Winston Churchill, or several Kennedys, when read again, will inspire once more.

Within their words are images of light, upbeat rhythm, and invitations to a better future. It's all in the words. Or more precisely, it's what we find in the words. Beyond what words denote is the power we give to what they suggest. 

When Churchill visualized the life of the world moving "forward into broad, sunlit uplands" or spoke of the "island home," which he called upon the British to defend, he rekindled treasured feelings of belonging, of place, and a life worth living. He brought to the foreground, in minds and hearts, some hope for what might be, amid the mayhem and misery of wartime realities.

This comes to mind vividly while reading and enjoying Thomas E. Ricks's intriguing dual-biography, Churchill & Orwell, The Fight for Freedom, alongside George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. 

Despite Churchill's own periodic challenges with what he called the "black dog" of depression, the positive power of his words somehow connected within neurons, delivering hope and purpose in himself and in others. Against this, the dark words of opponents looked off-putting, or plain, or sometimes even underwhelming.

Likewise, in George Orwell's writing, amid vivid descriptions of tough times and experiences in the Spanish Civil War, he projects a spirit of hope and possibility, for the ascent of human dignity from what the ramshackle human efforts in that war might be able to accomplish. 

Today, it's still possible to find words of light, separated from the projected fantasies of carnage and apocalypse that appeal to those wired for conspiracy or other dark arts, like autocrats and their co-conspirators. Slogans like one seen on a t-shirt recently, "vax–over my dead body" will appeal to those wired for the dismal, dreary, and macabre; but anyone who respects facts will reflect on that cheery thought, and see the ironic inference about the destiny of the myopic.

Shifting metaphors, if we are what we eat, it's reasonable to believe that we feel what we hear, see, and read. No great discoveries in neuroscience are needed to tell us that choosing the light and the bright matters, including the words around us. Through the words that we encounter and the words that we choose, we effectively "wire" our own world view.

So, here's a short-list of words in Orwell and Churchill that leapt from just the first pages of each, as they dealt with sombre scenes: Orwell, powerful, liking, affection, spirit, bridging the gulf, liked, stuck vividly, memory, special atmosphere; and, Churchill, repair, heroic, best troops, best trained, fought well, think of the future, safely back, very large and powerful. 

Often, both narrated hard realities, yet their language was peppered with optimism. We should all feel free to use such words, to encourage others to use them, to add to a list to keep handy for frequent use; perhaps sometimes they can help build spirits, to navigate better paths whenever dark forces are in play. These are words that wear well, and have no use-by-date. 

Of course, much more is at work in Orwell's and Churchill's language than just the presence of such words. They weren't just tossing together word-salad. Each deals with the difficult, yet is up-lifting. Each chose a place and purpose for every word in relation to others–creating patterns in syntax that shape minds and hearts. These are places to explore another time. 

For now, Orwell and Churchill (and Ricks) are calling to more lighter and brighter, to enjoy.

Whose Challenge?

Young Girl with Fish Bowl

by Mabel May Woodward. Shannon's Fine Art Milford CT is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Young_Girl_with_Fish_Bowl%27_by_Mabel_May_Woodward.jpg

Often barely noticeable, like the passing of the date on the calendar for the change of seasons last week, are many adjustments to how we live. No such luck with the impact of COVID.

This was clear early. Unfortunately, the projections in my first blogpost in May last year about the likely changes in services for daily needs, education, and other areas of life were close enough to what happened. Apparently, crystal-ball gazing can get some things right. 

From the 1970s, Heidi and Alvin Toffler scrutinized data to make large-scale, largely accurate predictions about the world we now live in. They were also mostly right about many details. From the same time, I recall predictions that we'd pay about the same price for water in a bottle as for wine, and people would be talking on portable  communicators everywhere–suggestions that were considered unlikely.

Yet, despite my years of eye-opening experience of people in politics and the media, still unanticipated was the sheer craven behavior of some wannabe leaders, who were elected to be responsible firstly for the safety and health of all of us. Who, other than the craven or complete cynics, would predict the ramshackle response of these individuals to the pandemic in the United States? 

For all the ongoing efforts of countless healthcare workers and so many other service providers, whom we literally applauded in symbolic and substantive statements of support last year, here we are. With many regions in the nation well-vaccinated, and others not, and with continuing threats to the supply chain for household goods and other key imports–thanks to the back-log of ships awaiting entry to the wharves of major ports. 

Part of this challenge is the ongoing threat of the anti-vax, anti-mask self-proclaimed elite, determined to endanger themselves and everyone else. A larger challenge is leadership that's lackluster or worse in too many places, hampering recovery efforts. We all know that this affects everyone. Even a child who cares for goldfish soon learns that murky water in the fish-bowl is everyone's challenge. 

One lesson hopefully learned during the last five years in the United States is that the self-deluded, right along with the grifters and charlatans, will keep thriving on distortions, unless each of us makes the effort to dismantle their oppositions to reality. When will there ever be enough pressure on the social media companies, elected officials, charlatans, and some heads of foreign governments who dangerously undermine our safety and health with well-publicized nonsense? What's very clear by now is what doesn't work: NEITHER the half-baked approach called "fact-checking," NOR repeating a propagandist's "messages" in the negative! 

Getting the attention of anyone to change behavior requires smart use of the motivation process. How to encourage change in someone who is opposed to a proposition has been known for a long time. Still useful are the steps John A. McGee shared for example, in 1929 in his book Persuasive Speaking, now out of copyright and freely available on the Internet [here], with a helpful table in his book, in Appendix C at pages 268-9. McGee's basic principles remain a good guide for some purposes.

Briefly, when seeking to change the actions of people opposed to a proposition, McGee advocated that we: 

1. Secure common ground by first emphasizing any agreement in attitudes, beliefs, or experiences–he described how to seek agreement on general principles, to apply a principle to the specific problem; 

2. Anticipate and overpower objections with facts and testimony that demonstrate your approach is the best solution; explain it, and offer proof that it removes the cause of a shared problem, using testimony that's credible in the eyes of your audience, with examples of successes; 

3. Make the results of the solution vivid with imagery, impelling motives and projections for the audience into the future, while being beware of exaggeration;

4. Request definite action, with specific ways that individuals can help, appealing to habit.

If this all sounds too long and logical, take confidence that folks who get creative have found simple, visual, and emotive ways to put a strategy like this into practice for thousands of years. McGee was just one of the first in more recent times to outline the steps so clearly.

Perhaps it's worth trying an alternative to filling the media and the air with conversations that perpetuate the divisiveness of propagandists. Smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, and too many pandemics since were eradicated not only thanks to the brilliant development and delivery of life-saving vaccines. 

Equally important was finding ways to enable reality laggards to just get over it!

The -ism Family

9-11 Memorial, New York

by Bryan Ledgard is licensed under CCA 2.0 Generic

Large, or even dangerously dominant, in people's minds and hearts is a family of words in English with the suffix -ism.

We can all too quickly think of some branch or other of the -ism family tree. The favorites of the 20th century were the feuding cousins "Fascism" and "Communism." Persistently adversarial also are "Conservatism" and "Liberalism" and "Radicalism" and "Anarchism," seeking the attention of potential devotees. And, on the left or the right, the often noisy claims of "Libertarianism" might pop up, sometimes with the implied question, "what about me?" Or, the calls of "Environmentalism" that ask the question, "what about all of us?"

Then there are the regrettably ever-enduring and insidious presumptions of "Racism" and "Sexism." They manage to keep finding followers among legislators, judges, employers, teachers, and parents, as well as some devotees of "Professionalism," or everyday individuals, all of whom keep blighting lives through the centuries. 

There's also "Cannibalism" or the arguably, analogically unrelated "Authoritarianism," or "Corporatism," or "Nationalism," or "Nazism," or "Tribalism," or "Populism" or "Cronyism" or "Denialism." Do we need to pay more attention to asking which of these branches in the -ism family are intertwined, or true, or phony? And, where are we with "Modernism," or "Postmodernism," or "Relativism"? To mix metaphors some, this is just the tip of the -ism iceberg. The complexity and scale of the -ism family appear substantial.

Of course, "Individualism" is a shining light surely, perhaps the 21st century's modern champion of -isms? It's easy to add to the catalog of the family members, and we need to exercise care about whether to include some in the family, such as "Opportunism," observed of course only in others. 

Then there are the frequent fellow travelers of "Cultism," "Fundamentalism," "Evangelism," and "Originalism." Which might additionally stimulate questions about what happened to "Realism?" So often not welcome in the -ism family.

Thanks to the creativity that language permits, we can be swamped with "Neologisms" seeking inclusion in the -ism family. This can be fine, even enjoyable, for anyone with interest in words.

Much trouble comes though when blind devotion to an -ism fuels the underpinning ideology that ignites emotions like greed and hate and fear. Deep-seated greed, hate, and fear drive nasty behavior. And, neither greed nor hate nor fear need look very far for family feuds to copy, like the generations of Hatfields and McCoys, or the Campbells and McDonalds, and who can forget the "joys" of the Montagues and Capulets? When blind devotion is a tinder box, "Extremism" makes common sense not so common.

With a history of misfortune and tragedy draped over so many -isms, it's reasonable to wonder what will ever slow the propagation and proliferated impact of the -ism family? Mostly, -isms don't comply with control, especially self-control. However much civil society attempts avoidance, containment, or elimination of -isms, these labels, libels, and lip-service to thinking will often just keep on keeping on. 

Look at the conveniently recurring use of "Socialism," blathered about in efforts to make outcasts of people from the left, the right, and the middle. Then there are "Nudism" and "Idealism," which sound suspiciously similar; best make outcasts of both, just in case. Of course, there's always difficult-to-deal-with "Hedonism," along with "Behaviorism," and digging deep into the barrel of despair there's the rag-bag with estranged relatives, "Sadism" and alter ego, "Masochism." 

And, no need to create "Joyism" or "Extaticism" just because a favorite word of humanity misses family membership by a letter. Yet anything like these could be welcome to crack the door on some real joy, or everyday peace, or safety at least, from those resurgent expressions of "Elitism," now in the form of the anti-vax, anti-mask devotees who dictate life in this COVID world, as threats to themselves and everyone else.

Fortunately, the great value of language and its relation to thinking is that the ability of each of us to create our own landscape for living is within each of us. Whether or not we'll ever have command of all the genealogical branches of the -ism family is unclear. Meantime, do you think it would help to think carefully before resorting to -ism talk?

Maybe too, we should listen to George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about such matters. It's more than time to heed his good advice to jeer loudly enough to send some of these lumps of verbal refuse into the dustbin where they belong.

9-11, Never Forget.

Humor-in-Law

1955 Austin A30

by Vauxford is licensed under CCA-SA 4.0 International

Studying criminal law way back when, a required class assignment was to provide a full report on a court proceeding. Finding a case to audit was probably part of the test, since this required locating the right noticeboard in the old courthouse downtown, firstly to choose from the list of hearings for the day, then to navigate the musty corridors of the old courthouse building, to be in the right place at the right time. And, this also turned out to be an early and unexpected experience of humor-in-law, before television audiences enjoyed the now dated but legendary British comedy series, Rumpole of the Bailey. 

The case I happened to choose was the preliminary hearing of three accused men, caught after a bank robbery gone wrong. The getaway car was an Austin A30, well-known in British Commonwealth countries at the time as an old family sedan, commonly referred to as a "baby Austin," not noted for speed. 

The tip-off to the arresting police was the car's license plate on the rear of the car, observed to be dangling vertically, just held by one shoe-lace; with the second shoe-lace that had kept this license plate horizontal and in place no longer visible, having surrendered its duty somewhere in the hurly-burly of getting away from the bank.

Revealed to the police, firmly-affixed, horizontal, and easily read underneath was the original license plate of this stolen car. So, the police pulled the baby Austin to the side of the road on suspicion, and the jig was up when pistols and canvas bags of bank money were sighted. 

With these facts, like a scene from Gilbert and Sullivan or another farce, it only occasionally gets any better when studying law! Not sure how the presiding magistrate kept a straight face as the prosecutor outlined each piece of evidence.

Equally remarkable was the dialog that occurred during recesses in the morning's proceedings, when the magistrate was not present. The police prosecutor and the accused men evidenced almost back-slapping "friendliness," apparently well-known to each other, with other police in the courtroom smiling discretely, appreciating these exchanges. Unsurprisingly, the prosecutor was optimistic about bringing a case to finally secure the three accused for a time, at Her Majesty's pleasure. 

The defense lawyer was more braggadocious in retelling, to anyone who'd listen, tit-bits of conversations he'd had with his clients during their dinners at his home; he was a big talker, combining poor dress sense with a diamond ring on one hand, and with a slickness just a touch akin to the character of the lawyer, Vinny, in the movie My Cousin Vinny. Yet he lacked most of the smarts of the movie lawyer. 

After these proceedings, I didn't track the outcome of the trial or any appeals; time to follow that progress was required for other assignments and, in those days, would also have required continuous checking of the right noticeboard in the courthouse; but it didn't look too promising for the three accused men during this preliminary hearing, which resulted in a clear case to answer.

Updating to the present in the United States, some of the more than 500 cases in progress against the January 6 terrorists at the Capitol present facts strangely similar. The terrorists' plans were large, but disconnected, and flawed enough in execution to permit over 300 million Americans to dodge, for now, the intended result of some 9,000 terrorists, who injured about 140 police while attempting to violently overturn democratic government. Many behaviors of the terrorists were as bizarre and darkly comedic as those of the bank robbers.  

Of course, anyone facing armed attackers, whether bank robbers or terrorists, with life put at risk, sees no humor. Bizarre as these events look in the rear-view mirror, they're a stark reminder of the importance to anticipate, pursue, and prosecute criminals soonest and well. 

Dumb luck is a fickle ally.