It’s a funny world. At the same time as we focus more and more of our communications energy into railing about the loss of privacy and the muddying of the water that once much more clearly differentiated between “personal” information and “public” information, it seems to me that we are actually doing more and more to undermine that very same once-held-to-be-sacred distinction.
After all (he whined – it is the sub-title of this blog, after all), it wasn’t that long ago that a phone booth was where we went in public when we wanted to use the phone. It was a small room, because when people used the phone, usually they didn’t want their phone business aired to the world or (and this is already a vanished courtesy) they didn’t feel it was appropriate to inflict their personal matters into public airspace. Over the years, we’ve seen such spaces devolve from Dr Who’s fortress-like call space [http://tardis.org/] and Superman’s well-protected changeroom [http://saltandpeppers.net/supermantbsp.jpg], through more modern and less private phone “booths” [http://www.johnsangiovanni.com/Images/2001-07%20Europe/Cinque%20Terre/29-Cool-looking%20phone%20booth.JPG] to… well, to this: http://www.noelheikkinen.com/images/cellphone.jpg
In my recent commuter travels to and from work, I have overheard (and not by fine-tuning any eavesdropping radar – but simply because the conversation emanated from, at its farthest, a seat or two away) half a conversation ripping some hapless guy named Kevin because he asked “her” out on Friday night and not, as Kevin was apparently expected to do, the holder of the cellphone; a grisly description of “Mom’s” hernia operation the previous day; and the “bullet-points” of the communications strategy that would accompany “his” announcement two days hence. (Which may or may not have worked. Two days hence, I heard nothing anywhere in the media that bore even a remote resemblance to any of the points I overheard being described. In government circles, the absence of media attention is just as often, if not more so, considered a “success”. But I digress.)
It must be the curmudgeon in me. Because despite the fact that I do indeed own a cellphone, I almost invariably wait until I am back in the privacy of my car before using it to make a call. And Lord knows I more and more frequently wish these days that other people would too.
(Although I will confess to having made an occasional call while standing at the Loblaws meat counter with a shopping list that says “4 lb beef roast” to solicit further specifics. But even that I do in a very low voice… “Whaddya mean ‘pot roast’ and ‘oven roast’ are different… if you cook it in an oven, isn’t it automatically an oven roast???”)
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My wife and I were watching a TV news clip a few days back and the story was about the local morning rush-hour traffic impact of a huge rolling convoy of farm tractors in the city to help make the case that farmers – grain and oilseed farmers in particular – need more money. At one point, one of their spokesmen was explaining to a reporter that they (the farmers) felt they needed to bring their message directly to the Parliamentarians in Ottawa because most reporters they dealt with “don’t know the difference between a bale of hay and a bale of straw”.
My wife and I looked at each other.
I think we each expected the other to say, “Oh c’mon, everyone knows that! It’s…” and then provide the answer, quickly snicker and nod, each thus grateful for not having had to reveal an appalling ignorance of farming and bale assembly to the other.
Unfortunately, after a brief silence, we discovered that if this indeed is the baseline measure by which one acquires either an “informed” or “ignorant” label when it comes to farming, then I’m sad to say we’re both ignorant about the profession.
(GoogleGoogleGoogle)
This gets quickly fascinating. It’s a distinction that has actually been used in no less a medium than the New York Times to characterize Democrats with an awareness of rural issues:
“So Democrats need to give a more prominent voice to Middle American, wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting centrists. (They can tote The Times, too, in a plain brown wrapper.) For a nominee who could lead the Democrats to victory, think of John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh, or anyone who knows the difference between straw and hay.” (NYT November 6, 2004, “Time to Get Religion”, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF)
But much to my relief, it’s not a blazingly obvious difference. And just to prove that (and also to prove that the Internet has at least one of absolutely everything), here’s a pretty authoritative sounding explanation from a blog on which there was actually a commentary and discussion under the title, “Straw vs Hay”:
“I’m sure I’ve had this conversation at least twice: what is the difference between straw and hay? I finally looked it up, and I think I’ve been calling a lot of stuff hay that is in fact straw. Huh.
Straw: The stems or stalks (esp. dry and separated by threshing) of certain cereals, chiefly wheat, barley, oats, and rye. Used for many purposes, e.g. as litter and as fodder for cattle, as filling for bedding, as thatch, also plaited or woven as material for hats, beehives, etc.
Hay: Grass cut or mown, and dried for use as fodder; formerly (as still sometimes) including grass fit for mowing, or preserved for mowing.
And now I know.”
(The only difference between me and this writer is his firm assertion at the end, “And now I know”. Me? I’m still not so sure.)
But unlike the London Daily Telegraph, at least I know the difference between a hay bale and a corn-rick (from the same blog):
“Don’t worry, you’re in good company. The great Daily Telegraph (London) got it wrong 3 or 4 years ago with a front page picture of a cornfield with bales of ‘hay’.”
Baby Duck: More than just rantin’ and whinin’. Ensuring a continuing awareness of the differences between the rural agrarian economy and the urban industrial complex.
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Even if you don’t immediately recognize the name Dan Brown, no doubt you have encountered one or more of his books many times in the past five years when you passed the front door of just about any bookstore in the land: The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Deception Point, Digital Fortress.
So, Memo to Mr Brown:
Dan, you may want to consider that, in light of the evidence cited in this brief portion of a story that appeared on the CBC website late in February, your defence might arguably be characterized as… well, not to put too fine a point it, “weak”:
“The author of The Da Vinci Code is in British High Court on Monday, accused of intellectual property theft.
The lawsuit by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, accuses Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown of stealing their themes and ideas for his blockbuster novel…
...
The name of a major character in Brown's book, Sir Leigh Teabing, could be an anagram of Leigh and Baigent.”
Baigent, Leigh… Leigh Teabing
“Could be” an anagram???
Geez, Dan, you’re the author of the flaming Da Vinci Code! Could you not have been a bit more imaginative? Claim it was a tribute, for heaven’s sake, not theft of intellectual property. (In my courtroom, having read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, I would begin and end the trial with the opinion that even to call it “intellectual property” is oxymoronic to the extreme. And that’s also why I could never be a judge. But I digress.) But Dan, really. Having wallowed in the “Where’s Waldo?” writing romp that “The Da Vinci Code” must have been, had you just sort of assumed that no one would pick up on your cleverness, in the mistaken belief that anagramming is a lost art, on a de-coding par with hieroglyphics?
Maybe you’re thinking that when it comes to concealing real names and identities, the absolute apex of subtlety is a technique exemplified by this Monty Python sketch:
The North Minehead Bye-election
[Knock] Door opens.
Landlady (Terry Jones): Hello, Mr and Mrs Johnson?
Mr Johnson (Eric Idle): Yes, that's right. Yes.
Landlady: Oh, come on in. Excuse me not shaking hands. I've just been putting a bit of lard on the cat's boils.
(Door closes)
Johnson: Thank you.…
Landlady: Well you must be dying for a cup of tea.
Johnson:Well, wouldn't say no, long as it's warm and wet.
Landlady: Well come on in the lounge, I'm just going to serve afternoon tea.
Johnson: Very nice.
Landlady: Come on in, Mr and Mrs Johnson and meet Mr and Mrs Phillips.
Mr Phillips (Graham Chapman): Good afternoon.
Johnson: Good afternoon.
Landlady: It's their third time here; we can't keep you away, can we? And over there is Mr Hilter.
(In the corner are three German generals in full Nazi uniform,poring over a map.)
Hilter (Cleese with heavy German accent): Ach. Ha! Gut time, er, gut afternoon.
Landlady: Oho, planning a little excursion, eh, Mr Hilter?
Hilter: Ja, ja, ve haff a little... (to Palin) was ist Abweise bewegen?
Bimmler (Michael Palin, also with German accent): Hiking.
Hilter: Ah yes, ve make a little *hike* for Bideford.
Johnson: Ah yes. Well, you'll want the A39. Oh, no, you've got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple section.
Hilter: Ah! Stalingrad! Ha ha ha, Heinri...Reginald, you haff ze wrong map here, you silly old leg-before-vicket English person.
Bimmler: I'm sorry mein Fuhrer, mein (cough) mein Dickie old chum.
Landlady: Oh, lucky Mr Johnson pointed that out. You wouldn't have had much fun in Stalingrad, would you? Ha ha.
[Stony silence]
I said, you wouldn't have had much fun in Stalingrad, would you?
Hilter: Not. Much. Fun… in Stalingrad. No.
Landlady: Oh I'm sorry. I didn't introduce you. This is Ron. Ron Vibbentrop.
Johnson: Oh, not Von Ribbentrop, eh?
Vibbentrop (Graham Chapman, with German Accent): Nein! Nein! Oh. Ha ha. Different other chap. I in Somerset am being born. Von Ribbentrop is born Gotterdammerstrasse 46, Dusseldorf Vest 8..... So they say!
Landlady: And this is the quiet one, Heinrich Bimmler.
Bimmler: Pleased to meet you, squire. I also am not of Minehead being born, but I in your Peterborough Lincolnshire vas given birth to. But am staying in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all time during vor, due to jolly old running sores, und vas unable to go in ze streets or to go visit football matches or go to Nuremberg. Ha ha. Am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes. Oh...and am glad England vin Vorld Cup. Bobby Charlton. Martin Peters. And eating I am lots of chips und fish und hole in ze toads and Dundee cakes on Piccadilly Line, don't you know old chap, vot! And I vas head of Gestapo for ten years.
[Hilter elbows him in the ribs.] Ah! Five years!
[Hilter elbows him again, harder.] Nein! No! Oh. NOT head of Gestapo AT ALL! I vas not, I make joke! (laughs)
Landlady: Oh, Mr Bimmler. You do have us on! (Telephone rings) Oh excuse me. I'd better get that.
Johnson: How long are you down here for, Mr Hilter, just the fortnight?
Hilter: Vot you ask zat for, are you a spy? Get on against ze wall, Britischer Pig. You are going to die!
Bimmler: Take it easy, Dickie old chum!
Vibbentrop: He's a bit on edge, Mr Johnson, he hasn't slept since 1945.
Hilter: Shut your cake-hole, you Nazi!
Vibbentrop: Cool it, Fuhrer cat!
Bimmler: Ha ha, ze fun we haff!
Johnson: Haven't I seen you on the television?
Hilter, Vibbentrop, Bimmler (hastily): Nicht. Nein. No.
Johnson: Simon Dee show, or was it Frosty?
Hilter, Vibbentrop, Bimmler: Nein. No.
Landlady: Telephone, Mr Hilter. It's Mr McGoering from the Bell and Compasses. He says he's found a place where you can hire bombers by the hour...?
Hilter: If he opens his big mouth again, it's Lapschig time!
Bimmler: Shut up! Ha ha, hire bombers! He's a joker, zat Scottish person.
Vibbentrop: Good old Norman!
Landlady (to Johnson): He's on the phone the whole time now.
Johnson: In business, is he?
Bimmler: Soon, baby!
Landlady: Of course it's his big day Thursday. They've been planning it for months.
Johnson: What's happening Thursday then?
Landlady: Well it's the North Minehead bye-election. Mr Hilter's standing as the National Bocialist. He's got wonderful plans for Minehead!
Johnson: Like what?
Landlady: Well, for a start he wants to annex Poland.
Johnson: North Minehead's Conservative, isn't it?
Landlady: Well, yes, he gets a lot of people at his rallies.
(Short scene cut: huge crowds outside going "Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil.")
Hilter: I am not a racialist, but...und zis is a big but...the National Bocialist party says zat das (stream of German).
Bimmler: Mr Hitler (Hilter slaps him) ...Hilter says historically Taunton is a part of Minehead already!
Hilter: Und der Minehead ist nicht die letze (stream of German)...in die Welt!
Crowd: Sieg Heil.
(Cut to interviews in the street)
Yokel (Jones): Oi don't loike the sound of these 'ere Boncentration Bamps.
Woman (Idle): Well, I gave him my baby to kiss, and he bit it in the head!
Upper class (Cleese): Well, I think he'd do a lot of good to the Stock Exchange.
Gumby (Palin): I FINK ‘E'S GOT BEAUT’FUL LEGS!
Conservative (Chapman): (droning) Well... well... as the Conservative candidate I just drone on and on and on and on without letting anyone else get a word in edgeways, until I start to froth at the mouth and fall over backwards. Ooo-aaahhh. (THUD)
Hilter – Hitler; Baigent – Teabing; Sweet potato – yam.
- -
An Olympic footnote 1: Canada’s February 22 Olympic men’s hockey loss to Russia, by yet another 2-0 score – which dispatched Canada’s NHLers to the bus terminal sign labeled “Home” – was the overwhelming headline-dominator on the day after Canadian women also won two gold and two silver medals. The media handwringing began with only minutes left in the third period. A number of stories picked the “turning point of the game” as Russia’s first goal (rather disappointingly discounting my view that it was, in fact, the opening face-off). It was scored while a Canadian player was in the penalty box.
Now if you were in charge of the “Divine Retribution” file for a day, who would you have put in the penalty box to bitingly underline the game’s “turning point”?
You win! (Yep… Todd Bertuzzi.)
An Olympic footnote 2-A. When the Canadian men’s curling team, a Newfoundland team, played for the gold medal on February 24, the provincial government declared a half day holiday so the entire province could watch the draw. Perhaps sensing the tidal wave of support radiating from home, the Newfoundlanders swept (hee hee) their opponents 10-4 (due in large part to one six-point end). And I didn’t hear anyone complain at all about the lack of “swingy” ice.
An Olympic footnote 2-B. And did you catch the highlight reel for the gold medal women’s curling match between Sweden and Switzerland? If not, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: It came down to the last rock of the final end and required the Swedish skip to finesse a perfect and very difficult double-takeout to win (not only to remove the two Swiss rocks, but also to leave her own in the rings).
Now, here we are many days later and, oddly enough, I have yet to read a word that she was able to do it because of the European familiarity with “straight ice”. She just made one hell of a shot – brought out her very best at the exact moment she needed it to take home a gold medal. And when her rock stayed in the rings after hammering out the two Swiss stones, she burst into tears of joy. And that’s what the Olympics is all about, Charlie Brown.
- -
And finally, a brief book review – something you don’t often read here, but once in a while I will encounter something that is just too good to keep to myself.
Somewhere in the course of my secondary school education, I took a wrong turn and wound up in four successive years of Latin while my scholastic peers were being immersed in the earth sciences and environmental science, leaving me to regret much later in life that I never, in all my high schooling, took a course in geology or biology, and only managed one introductory course each of chemistry, physics and a course in which I was among a population of test-year students, space science. (The absence of a more in-depth exposure to high school science had to do with my having been an air force brat. As Dad was transferred to different RCAF bases, I was parachuted into schools run under different provincial curricula. In consequence, when I left the Quebec system after Grade 10 to come to the Ontario system for Grade 11, I was absent the prerequisites to move into the science stream in my new school.)
(The most consistent benefit of my four years of Latin is that I tend to recreate quite happily among the grids of cryptic crossword puzzles. That, and the seemingly endless amusement of my now teenaged offspring at hearing that “Semper Ubi Sub Ubi” translates literally as “Always Where Under Where” – you gotta take your praise where you can get it when you’re the parent of a teenager.)
All of which is to say that I really love it when a book comes along that explains science to me in a way that is both understandable and enjoyable to read. Such a book is Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. I am only halfway through it and cannot recall ever having had so much fun reading about the sciences ranging from the very big (the suspected distance between Earth and the limits of the known universe) to the very small (the variety of particles that actually make up an atom), with stops along the way to consider the very incomprehensible (quantum physics).
What Bryson has done is build a remarkable account, by way of a series of biographies of some amazing and heroic people, of how we came to where we are in our understanding of, for example, a basic scientific building block like the Periodic Table of the Elements. Occasionally, a “biography” in fact might be no more than a single paragraph, but its subject is always a key player – and often as not an unacknowledged key player – in the evolution of our present body of scientific knowledge.
But what makes “A Short History…” especially engaging is Bryon’s wonderful sense of humour, and his ready admission that you can’t possibly be expected to understand some of the often wildly baffling theories that define modern science. His second-last sentence in the chapter on quarks, for example, is this: “The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we can’t quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance with physical laws we don’t truly understand.”
And take these Bryson citations on describing someone’s first likely reaction to that particularly complex wing of physics that requires you to accept that an electron is “at once everywhere and nowhere”:
“Bohr once commented that a person who wasn’t outraged on first hearing about quantum theory didn’t understand what had been said. Heisenberg, when asked how one could envision an atom, replied: ‘Don’t try.’”
Bryson also provides some terrific examples to help one grasp just how incomprehensible something incomprehensible is. For example, he says that to get a picture of just how many particles are in “Avogadro’s number”, a chemistry constant (6.02 X 10 to the 23rd power) that allows scientists to measure the size and weight of atoms, consider this: it’s the number of popcorn kernels that would be required to cover the entire United States to a depth of nine miles. Now you still might not understand _how_ big that number is, even with that picture in mind, but at least now you most assuredly understand that it is, indeed, a very big number. And that’s all Bryson sets out to do.
Even at only halfway through, I have already encountered a few surprises. For example, the science of plate tectonics and continental drift, which I just assumed to be probably a couple hundred years along, has only been accepted as geological fact within my lifetime, dating in fact to a meeting of the Royal Society in London, England in 1964 (when the Beatles were rocking the walls of Liverpool’s Cavern Club) when, reports Bryson, “suddenly… everyone was a convert”.
Read this book. In fact, buy this book because I suspect you’ll want to go back to it more than once.
À la prochaine.
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