14

Goodbye Brains

Posted by Abaco 9 years, 3 months ago to Culture
117 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

I want to mention something and get your take. I do a lot of business...meaning - I work a lot, rely on a lot of different people to work with me. This is above and beyond the waiter we all deal with who screws up our order, and the accountant who fills out the forms wrong, etc. Over the past few years I have noticed that almost nobody does their job right anymore. I actually wonder if people are just getting dumbed down, poisoned by something in the water, generally just pissed off, or if there's something else going on. I work with another business our office has done work with for several years. As I'm learning what this office does I'm now forced to ask them, "What do you do for us?" Because, it appears that they don't do anything. They just have a contract with us (that I'm requesting today so I can read it). I mean...I actually find business arrangements like that which have just degraded into nothingness (with nobody able to say why). Hard to explain (as I just have a few minutes and need to jet). But, in the professional world and general public I'm seeing this mass incompetence. What the hell is going on? Anybody else see this?


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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My library does not have Poets Pack. However, the other two should be up from storage and at the front desk in a couple of days. Thanks!
    MEM
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There is some left at Amazon but I bought the last of the inexpensive meaning under $40 volumes.I had been reading a book called Not this August by Kornbluth and Pohl one of the three forecast books for the countries future. CM Kornbluth was a student in that teachers classroom. I have all three including Poets Pack. The Hollow Reed which was also called the Golden Treasure at one time and Elements of Journalism. Should you be interested in reading them.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks! I requested both at the UT Library. Both were in storage. One copy of The Hollow Reed is for library use only at the Harry Ransom Center rare book collection. Lost work...
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'll bet the Belgians do, too. Are past wafflecipuls too stale also?
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Here's one reference if you can find a copy anymore. Mary J. J. Wrinn author of The Hollow Reed and Elements of Journalism published from 1929 to 1935.

    To get the education she provided her high school students back then would take a Masters Degree now IF such a curriculum were available.

    Given your comment that and a result of her work called the Poet's Pack should be of interest.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It don't matter what you think because everyone thinks what they want and I don't care how many books you published if you can't have an idea to share without putting people down it doesn't matter and you can see that I know don't from doesn't and my ideas are clear, too only you don't see that because your are so stuck on your past life which is what you don't have cause if you did you wouldn't of come here to be online all day long.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not in Mrs. Swatts 8th grade grammar class. But these days anything goes and nothing means anything. Today most people cannot write. Back then we didn't have to think about which was which. We had something called schools and received something called an education. Words had meanings and now we circle file meaningless writings such as the Bill of Rights with a "So What?".

    Remember that when you try to quote your non-existent Constitution and I laugh at you. Or as did happen someone says it's a forgery because they failed to learn proper punctuation. Iis even now using it to legitimize changes in the Constitution.

    So dangle your participle and when it's chopped off ...don't come complaining to me.

    You are getting what you deserve.

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/...

    used to backup secular progressives use of ACLU to make constitutional changes in the courts and without amendments and quoted in George Lakoff's hand book for the advancement of Secular Progressivism.

    All because Professor Allen failed to apply one conceivable angle...that of punctuation and grammar. All because people think the language is unimportant. Cost you the Bill of Rights so far...

    It took me fifteen minutes to correctly identify the source of her complaint ..It will take Danielle Allen a lifetime and she will still be a dangling participle of a failed education system.

    I'll give you fifteen minutes to identify the problem and the solution or what the helll take an hour or a day or two.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Being diabetic, I prefer the sugar free with a Belgian Waffle. Since the terrorist attacks in Belgium, I fear for their waffles.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    One can use a participle without labeling it with the name. Most people write without thinking of what part of speech they are using. "well here's a noun here's verb, now an adverb, a participle, a predicate, etc. "
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    While I understand the motivation behind your quip, it remains that knowing what a participle is is important to being able to write well. It is not just knowing the formal definition of a participle, but, more to the point, being able to hear it in your own speech as you write.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    adjectived and fruther and conservastive. The last left out a letter S. Was it humor, the auto spell or just a hurried stab at an unedited example. Either way. Either is redumbdent. Thus I hoist my petard.
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Particles of grammar? You mean the atomic formulas of mathematical logic? Who could write sentences without it? Do they go down better with syrup?
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You must not buy very much. And that communist crap is made by the worlds number one capitalist country for the most part. China. The new version of what you are referring to is the USSA formerly the USA.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Writing, like speaking, is communication. If you can express yourself in writing so that I understand your meaning, you are communicating. If you can do it in a well structured elegant sentence, so much the better. But, no matter how elegant the sentence, if it does not clearly communicate a thought, it is worthless. I have read submissions that ramble on for many paragraphs that in the end I didn't know what in hell the point the writer was trying to make. I could sometimes guess, but I'd rather know for sure. And, yes, especially in storytelling, the point (concept, if you will) is deliberately made vague in order to increase suspense, but in that case the reader knows what to expect because of the genre.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    ewv:
    You sure you aren't confusing it with a particle? You know, those tiny parts of atoms that scientists say everything is made from? Sometimes I think they just make that stuff up in order to get it to fit their math.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'd debate everyone having a sense of humor.
    Sorry if I don't write up to your standards. However, I have been published, been a publisher and editor. I'm afraid that I don't understand your use of "non-conceptual." Everything must be conceptual or it is just gibberish. Since most people seem to understand what I write, there must be a concept of some sort hidden there somewhere. Perhaps the subject? I'm trying to sew your comments together in order to understand them. Are you implying that I somehow violated cause and effect? I understand your school experience as it was quite a bit like mine.
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Whatsa particlecipul? Can I have one of those for breakfast too? Do past particlecipuls get too stale?
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Those weren't actually Japanese business models, just so you know. They were American business models created by Deming (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwa.... Because there was nothing left of Japan's manufacturing industry due to the bombing, they were able to start over from scratch and build new factories using new equipment, new technologies, and new processes - paid for and engineered by the USA.

    One of the results of WW II was that the US was one of the few manufacturing centers still left in the world - which is why the 50's and 60's were so prosperous for us. But after that initial startup period was over and all our generosity to other nations got them back to providing not only for themselves but manufacturing for the world, their newer plants, technology, and processes quickly put US manufacturing at a distinct disadvantage. The steel mills are the quintessential example. Most of our steel mills were built in the run-up to WW II and used extensive, megalithic footprints and processes. The Japanese (and many others) rebuilt in the 50's using mini-mills, which had a smaller footprint (lower overhead) and could turn out steel of very high quality quickly.

    It's in areas like this that I think there is a case for government to go to businesses to offer them guarantees to rebuild a critical manufacturing industry like steel. There is just simply too much initial capital outlay involved and steel production is too critical to too many industries. Our primary sources for steel now are overseas. Can you imagine how construction would grind to a halt if we got into a major war?
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You think or you know or perhaps you believe? Never mind the redundant use of also but a point for 'May I.'

    Labor as we might the use of that which I rail against seems to pop out in moments of, usually, late night sessions when the brain is tired and the fingers work as if on auto pilot. Muscle memory has a mind of it's own.

    Think declares a state of hesitation in the value of the observation. Believe is a much stronger and based on personal ability to examine the value of something. Know - although much misused as if it were of no value - is a positive word and a strong one. "You know" is slang and implies the second person with an ability that may or may not be true. Worse is 'You know what I meant or mean with out a question mark."

    Feel completely free to treat me the same. I probably deserve it although it's in the interest of accuracy and not pedantic EXCEPT when it's humor!!!!! All the above relates to Maritimus comment not Abaco and I would hate to cross verbal swords with DHalling or MMarotta. Both of whom have yet to confuse clip with magazine.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Most requires interpretation because as Mike said there are many interpretations of how to produce a grammatical sentence and many more versions of the meaning of words.

    I learned traditional English the diagrammed sentence led from left to right. I don't give a fig about what followed. I do adjectived and adverbs not modifiers and intensifiers whatever the hell those are.

    It is my job to learn definitions. If you don't use a real dictionary meaning tough. I will interpret what you or anyone else wrote and react to it in pre PC English. It's not my job to memorize thirty million different other versions. If it doesn't come across as intended I can always check to see if there were meanings 2, 3,4, If not....tough.

    I don't do reality tv definitions, I don't do definititons of the so called news casters none of that. I don't do pop illliteracci or glitteratti.

    If you tell me I suck I punch you out. Plain and simple. And that has happened.

    I have a rather large vocabulary and still use a dictionary. It taught me that the redefiniiton goes back fruther than I thought. such as is common with liberal, conservative socialist and capitalist and decimate.

    Consequently I have taken a page from non grammatical of Mr. Lenin and the current crop of leftists. I don't use their definitions at all.

    When I say left wing extremists I am referring to both the national and international version of socialism.

    When I say center I mean the Constitution not the center of the left.

    when i say left I include the Republican party as the right wing OF the left

    It's the only way I've found to make any sense of it.

    If you don't like it ...I do not care.

    If you dangle a participle I conclude you forgot to finish the pancake and wonder was it boxers or briefs? Obviously if you didn't care then ....why should I?

    Is this a conservastive of a liberal failing? BOTH. For none of you use those words with any discernible meaning either. ...Very few. perhaps three...
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Everyone has a sense of humor. As with roses and noses, some people find the humor of others cloying, perhaps offensive. But the humor is sensed.

    I made my comment before I saw above that in a previous life you were a publisher. I had time to edit the original slight, but I let it stand so that we could have this conversation.

    "Non-conceptual" would have been better than "anti-intellectual." Among the great insights provided by Ayn Rand was that an individual is the summation of their ideas. Most people, apparently, do not construct consistent systems of thought from examination and introspection. I could say, colloquially, that you have good instincts. Your heart is in the right place. But you are not a philosopher.

    The physical law of cause-and-effect cannot be avoided. You complained that the writers who came to you could not tell a story. Worse, they could not communicate a coherent idea in a single sentence. I loved the semesters devoted to grammar, and suffered through the half-year of literature. The only exception was the 10th grade when the literature included more exposition, even technical writing. It was worth reading. It was as much fun as diagramming sentences. The ideas were crisp and certain. The points made were unarguable. You did not have to agree, but you knew what you were disagreeing about. The kids who came to you unable to write suffered from a lack of that in school. That was the point made by Sp_cebux. You dismissed it with a quip.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Prioir military experience is a bird of a different feather. One can have 20 years experience and still not qualify unless one has served in live combat as a front line combatant. One finds that lot is far less trigger happy than a reality TV based civilian. Students...by definition including the newly graduated have no experience and are qualified only to seek qualification level jobs.
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  • Posted by blackswan 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have one issue with your requirement of prior experience. I've worked in a number of industries, and in every one, I had no prior experience, but in every one, I was able to contribute a LOT within 2 years or less. In one case my contributions led to a doubling of the company's profits, and in another, what I did helped grow the business 7-fold over 20 years, long after I'd left. I suggest that you look at what the candidate has accomplished, rather than whether or not he's worked in the field. Some people are fast learners, and can come with an ability to see what others can't or have difficulty seeing. That's been my experience.
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