Picking the Spin, Spinning the Pic

A recent article in Newsweek starts off asking, "Could the Montauk Monster have been faked?" But it deals only incidentally with the Montauk Monster; the main issue is with doctored photos. It quickly seques into an interview with John Long, chair of the ethics committee for the National Press Photographers Association.

I have to say that something seems fundamentally wrong here.

According to the article, photojournalists have to work back up to the respectability of the other journalists. But it seems to me the other way around - namely, snapshots have come down to the level of respectability of the rest of the media.

Photos have been perceived as the last refuge of honesty in the media. OK, writers will put a spin on text or sound bites; we're used to that. Even the editing of video - we know somebody's spinning it there too. But now static images somehow seemed...pure. The last few years have pretty much dashed that rosy image.

My guess is the relative difficulty of doctoring photos. To fix a photo, you had to really know what you were doing because the technology wasn't available to just anybody. It was time-consuming and expensive. Even though doctoring photos goes back at least as far back as 1860, digital tech has made it so much easier to pull off. Hence more widespread. It's pretty obvious, just scrolling down and glancing at the dates of the pictures.

(Speaking of, check out the one dated December 2007. The executive editor defended the paper, maintaining that "the photo did not blur the line between news reporting and editorial commentary." Of course not: that line was blasted years ago. I'd love to blame Fox News, but that's probably just me.)

What's effectively happened is an erosion of trust in the media as such. People complain of apathy among students regarding current events, when the media themselves are at least partly responsible for this. And is there any real question why that is? Kids aren't stupid; they know when somebody's trying to put one over on them. Succeeding generations are more media-savvy than ever, and more cynical. This is a natural response, I think. Number one, there are more cameras around than ever; you can make your own video in minutes or even seconds, and post it on Youtube in seconds. People know how easy it is to dress up a picture anymore. Number two, despite this widespread knowledge, there are more visual distortions passed off as genuine than ever. This is lying, pure and simple. And it's not by joke-loving Youtubers or armchair bloggers (Le blog, c'est moi); it's professional journalists, who get paid to inform people about what's going on.

Your friend lies: how do you react after you've been burned?

Somebody you know is a pathological liar: how do you react to anything he/she says?

A one-eyed babysitter depicts lies, cover-ups, and plain old stupidity - committed not simply by subjects of the media, but by the media itself - over and over: how do you react?


I'd like to try and write up some potential benefits from this sort of situation, but - you guessed it - that's another post.

Quote of the Day

I'd like to borrow an honorable tradition from my friend over at Agent Intellect: the tradition of posting interesting quotes.

Today's quote has to do with the economy of research. Sounds dry, but is actually fascinating:

"A leading principle of inference which can lead from a true premiss to a false conclusion is insofar bad; but insofar as it can only lead either from a false premiss or to a true conclusion, it is satisfactory; and whether it leads from false to false, from true to true, or from false to true, it is equally satisfactory. The first part of this theorem, that an inference from true to false is bad, [follows] from the essential characteristic of truth, which is its finality. For truth being our end and being able to endure, it can only be a false maxim which represents it as destroying itself. Indeed, I do not see how anybody can fail to admit that (other things being equal) it is a fault in a mode of inference that it can lead from truth to falsity. But it is by no means as evident that an inference from false to false is as satisfactory as an inference from true to true; still less, that such a one is as satisfactory as an inference from false to true. The Hegelian logicians seem to rate only that reasoning A1 which setting out from falsity leads to truth. But men of laboratories consider those truths as small that only an inward necessity compels. It is the great compulsion of the Experience of nature which they worship. On the other hand, the men of seminaries sneer at nature; the great truths for them are the inward ones. Their god is enthroned in the depths of the soul. How shall we decide the question? Let us rationally inquire into it, subordinating personal prepossessions in view of the fact that whichever way these prepossessions incline, we can but admit that wiser men than we, more sober-minded men than we, and humbler searchers after truth, do today embrace the opinion the opposite of our own. How, then, shall we decide the question? Yes, how to decide questions is precisely the question to be decided. One thing the laboratory-philosophers ought to grant: that when a question can be satisfactorily decided in a few moments by calculation, it would be foolish to spend much time in trying to answer it by experiment. Nevertheless, this is just what they are doing every day. The wisest-looking man I ever saw, with a vast domelike cranium and a weightiness of discourse that left Solon in the distance, once spent a month or more in dropping a stick on the floor and seeing how often it would fall on a crack; because that ratio of frequency afforded a means of ascertaining the value of pi, though not near so close as it could be calculated in five minutes; and what he did it for was never made clear. Perhaps it was only for relaxation; though some people might have found reading Goldsmith or Voltaire fully as lively an occupation. If it were not for the example of this distinguished LL.D., I should have ventured to say that nothing is more foolish than carrying a question into a laboratory until reflection has done all that it can do towards clearing it up -- at least, all that it can do for the time being. Of course, for a seminary-philosopher, to send a question to the laboratory is to have done with it, to which he naturally has a reluctance; while the laboratory-philosopher is impatient to get a whack at it." - C.S. Peirce, "The Essence of Reasoning" Collected Papers 4.69

Which tells me that Dr. Thunderdome was no philosopher at all.

Busy, busy, busy

It's a busy month, and will be a busy few months, so - if you haven't noticed already - I'll be posting less frequently for a while. Of course, I've said that before. And what happened? I posted the next day!

But really, Dear Readers, I have to concentrate a bit more than usual. I would love to write more, but duty calls.

So, for your meantime enjoyment, here's a little joke - yes, I'm easily amused. Stop me if you've heard this one:

A kid goes to the local whorehouse. "Give me the skankiest hooker you got, the most disease-ridden one," he says to the madam.

The madam raises her eyebrows. She says, "Our ladies are not skanky." The kid pours his piggy bank on the table. "Right this way."

They go the parlor. The madam calls out a vile-looking vixen. "Say, what do you want this one for?" asks the madam.

The kid says, "Because Mom and Dad are going out tonight, and the babysitter has sex with me while they're gone. So she'll get sick."

"Why do you want to get your babysitter sick?"

"Well, when Mom and Dad get back, Dad will drive the babysitter home - he does that every time, and they have sex in the car."

"Now why do you want your father to get the clap?"

"So that Mom catches it when they have sex."

The madam is getting a little worried by now. "What do you want your mom to get the clap for?"

"Because when Dad's at work, she has sex with the mailman, so he'll get sick."

"Why do you want that?"

"'Cuz he ran over my frog!" the kid cries.

What I Learned from Skipping Stones, 25 years later

When I was growing up in North Dakota, Dad often took my brother and me to a nearby lake. We'd fish for a while, and then, when we got bored, would often start skipping stones - which pretty much guaranteed no further bites for the day. For anybody.

The best stones are flat and smooth; they'll sail along for six, even eight skips before coming to rest at the bottom of the lake. Unless you've experienced it, you will never understand the joys of a good skipping stone. They just feel so good in the hand: they fit in the palm of your hand, have a nice heft. And to stroke the smooth surface is particularly gratifying in its way. Some have interesting colors - or maybe you just notice whatever color it is, and it's interesting. Even gray can hold its fascination. (Boys don't think this way; the appreciation is there, the words aren't.)

You can get so fascinated in a stone that you almost forget why you picked it up in the first place. And that's where a problem sometimes comes up: do you keep it and hunt for another,
maybe less pretty rock to skip? or do you give this one a good throw, and maybe beat your personal record of skips? You know that if you throw it well, you're bound to get beautiful results. But if you do, you won't get to admire the stone anymore. It won't be yours.

Nine times out of ten, you throw it; after all, that was the point. Besides, if you put it in your pocket and take it home, what happens? It ends up in a drawer, and you won't think of it again until you're rooting around for a paper clip. You remember the rock-skipping; you forget the rock in your drawer.

- - -

I forgot about all this until almost a year ago. There was a Taize workshop here, my first chance to find out what it was all about. The theme of the day was love, drawing on John 15:11-13. Due to some recent events in my personal life, it was already a pressing theme. So the question kept turning in my head the whole day; I wanted to find some answers.

In the afternoon we had a workshop in clay molding. The leader set some music on a CD player, and instructed us to form the clay as we saw fit. (For you writers out there, a sort of freewriting session, only with clay.) I had no idea what to do with my lump of clay, so - better to just muddle through until something happens. (That's something I learned from freewriting: you can't stay truly aimless for very long. Sooner or later you'll strike out in some direction.)

After a few tries, I discovered that I could make the clay smooth by stroking it. Soon afterward I found that I could make round discs that were smooth just by holding the clay in one hand, covering it with the other, and rotating them in opposite directions.

It quickly became an obsession to make a perfectly round, flat piece, smooth all over. No depiction of anything in particular (so I thought), only the desire to make the perfect form. What was going on around me, I had no clue. The question of love was turning more now. My hands went and did their thing as I kept thinking on the question. Only gradually, as I kept trying to get it right, did the memories of skipping stones arise. The rock hefted in my hand, the soft texture of the hard stone. I remembered the joy of the act - of finding a good stone, winding up for the throw, launching it sidearm, watching it arc and arc again over the water, leaving a line of splashes behind.

The leader called for us to wind it up; I snapped out of the trance. She asked us to place our work on the table in front. I was surprised at how elaborate and - well, how big some of the pieces were. What did I have? A few crappy pieces of meaningless abstract form, and a couple small discs. They'd get lost up there. Maybe be taken as leftovers, rather than a finished piece. The leader encouraged us to talk about our work; if we wanted to, we could explain what the pieces meant. Many did, and some had quite elaborate ideas going on. I had some memories, and that's all.

I put it aside, on a nearby desk. I didn't know anybody there, I hadn't known what to expect there. I wasn't going to embarrass myself by stammering through some disjointed memories and pointing to a little lump of clay that you could barely see. No way.

We packed up and headed out for dinner. Another fellow told me he couldn't think of anything either; I wonder if he wasn't in the same boat as me. As we left the room, I noticed that my lumps were piled together with all the other pieces of leftover clay. It was just as I expected - only an explanation could have saved them, and I'd wasted my chance. Still, it hurt a little to see them treated that way. They weren't much, but I had tried to make something of them.

- - -

A couple nights ago, the memory of all this came up again. It started making more sense this time around, and I felt that somehow it was worth saying. Rather than try and analyze it to death, it seemed better to just place on the table for you to see. If it has anything to say, it will. So, for what it's worth, here you are.

If you're too lazy to exercise, come closer...

Lazy-asses of the world, unite! in emptying your wallets. But relax, there's still time to get over your mortgages and credit card debts before sinking into this hole. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

A recent news item has it that somebody's created "exercise in a pill." According to said item, mice given the drug burned more calories and ran farther than a control group. Whoa! Little fur-bearing Carl Lewises and Jackie Joyner-Kersees, made by a pill? Sounds like training day is about to become a relic of the past, like belt machines, exercise bikes, and Jane Fonda workout tapes.

The author of the article, a medical doctor, adds that the drug would take years to get FDA-approved. Maybe, but I'm not so sure that will prevent idiots from buying it when it does come out. And it eventually will come out, I predict. Because there are enough potential buyers to justify whatever research costs.

Also, he says the exercise drug would have to give all the benefits of real exercise. That would only be true if it were supposed to replace exercise. Do I agree? As you expected, I do not. This sounds more like wishful thinking than anything. I seriously doubt that any synthetic chemical will replace the complex reactions that occur when training. We won't go into all of that, simply because I don't know all of it. And besides, it wouldn't fit into a blog entry. Suffice it to say, the R&D guys will keep trying to satisfy lazy asses by making a pill to do the job - all in the name of progress.

Progress it might be if we discover all the intricacies of the body. But the cynic in me seriously doubts that's the motive behind this. If this pill gets the FDA green light, you know damn well what's going to happen.

Can you say "Bandwagon"? I knew you could.

You know what's going to happen: Fitness magazines and gyms will be falling over themselves to market this stuff. Celebrities will make special appearances on Oprah to say how much it's done for them. Every website will be choking with banners hawking it. Infomercials will run 24-7 like the Rapture's on its way:

New! - Miracle Fitness Pill!!!
Buy now before it's too late!!!!

Yes folks, it's a snake-oil salesman's wet dream. And it's coming soon - break out the umbrella, or better yet, build an ark.

(Image cleverly five-finger-discounted from http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/11/17/fat-men/)

Pre-op checkout

Dear readers, I have a confession to make. Today, in about an hour, I am off to the hospital for a bit of minor surgery. And I don't like it, not one bit.

It's not the surgery itself that bothers me so much. It's not the fact that I'm losing time on my dissertation. Nor is it the overnight stay in a room that might have three other dudes. These things do not make me happy, but they're not what's eating me right now.

What really annoys me is that I can't have breakfast. No cereal, no coffee, no juice. No water. Nothing.

So here I am, killing time, thinking about what to amuse myself with in the hospital, and my stomach is growling. And dammit, I want to do my breakfast ritual! I want to hit the alarm, stumble into the kitchen, get the water going, fix a bowl of cereal, hunt around for a clean spoon. And I can't. Dammit all.

But would they schedule the surgery for 9am or something like that? Nooooooooooooooooooooo - 11am! I've got the whole damn morning to kill. Believe me, it would be nice to get some work done in that time; every minute counts now, really. But it's hard to focus when you know you're going into a hospital, where they're going to put you under, and you won't know what it'll be like afterward, and dammit I want my damn breakfast now give it to me!

*sigh*

Might as well blog.

(Image supernaturally swiped from http://cruelkev3.blogspot.com/2007/04/man-rises-from-dead.html)

Waiter, there's a blog in my soup!

Here's something you might find interesting: Waiter Rant. (It's in Ye Olde Blogrolle too.) Fine writing about working in fine dining establishments. Play catch-up, like me, by going through it (hint: going chronologically helps when reading some posts). One entry I rather like can be found here.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked in the kitchens of a few restaurants. I can't say it was my favorite job, but it was a good experience in several ways. So The Waiter has got the Wordverter Seal of Approval for taking that experience - much more than I got - and turning it into something even better: a comment on living.

(Image coolly purloined from http://julesverne-art.nl/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=16)