Towel Day

My Fellow Comedists,

Yesterday was Towel Day, the international celebration of the work of Douglas Adams. Like all other nerds who love comedy, Douglas Adams was my hero. His dry, smart, playful humor has made him a modern day Lewis Carroll.

My favorite passage:

The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambelweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood — and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance to the theory of indeterminacy.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.

Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they encountered while trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind-paralyzing distances between the farthest stars, and at the end of the day they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.

Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning in this way: If, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual impossibility, it must have finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out how exactly improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!

He did this and was rather startled when he managed to create the long sought after golden Infinite Improbability generator. He was even more startled when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he was lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had realized that one thing they couldn't stand was a smart-ass.

Two questions. First, your favorite Douglas Adams passage. Second, what is the difference between The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and an iPad rigged to only access Wikipedia?

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Noah Webster: Founding Father of Political Correctness

The phrase "political correctness" may have been coined within the last few decades, but the concepts behind it and the initial attempts to put them in action may be found in the earliest years of our country.  Noah Webster is best remembered for compiling the eponymous dictionary.  That dictionary, its methodology, and intent are pure PC.

Webster believed that the United States not only needed to be politically independent of the British, but further that this independence would only be complete if it was fully cultural as well.  The British governmental system was pregnant with basic social values -- people are divided into higher and lower classes, the power and wealth was to be unevenly distributed based on this split, the powerful have the right to dictate every aspect of life to the less powerful.  This was not an unusual view to hold, but Webster took an additional step -- the problematic social values were contained in the language and as long as Americans spoke the British language, we would be unconsciously buying into their morally problematic cultural ethic.  If we are to be us, to be fully liberated, then we must have our own language, our own English, not the King's English, but the American people's English.

And so Webster took an American approach.  Where the King's English was a set of formal rules and meanings grammatically imposed upon the people with the power of the name of the monarch, American English would come democratically from the people, documented as was actually spoken.  Instead of being an authority that dictates what words mean and how they are used, it would instead be an empirically-based document that describes what colonial speakers mean by the words and how they use them. 

This is a striking precognition of the political correctness movement of the 80s and 90s in which language was seen as containing subconscious conceptual frameworks of subjugation put in place by an unequal power structure.  The way to liberate the oppressed was to reform the language so it no longer contained the old invisible connotations.  The next time you go to the dictionary to look up a word, realize that your action is intrinsically the hallmark of political correctness.

Is Addiction Itself Problematic?

I had lunch yesterday with my editors from Johns Hopkins University Press and one of them who ordered a cup of coffee was making light of her supposed caffeine addiction.  It leads to the question whether such an addiction would be a problem.  Suppose you are a fully functioning addict -- addicted to whatever it is -- and the addiction does not harm your ability to have the life you want and does not cause hardship to those you care about.  Maybe you really enjoy the object of your addiction.  Is this a problem?  Addiction, by its nature is a forfeiting of autonomy.  Doesn't an addiction, in this way, make you less human?  But if your life is no worse, is it problematic?  Is it addiction or the effects of many addictions that are problematic?

Should Computers Be Allowed on the Sidelines?

Laptops and iPads are now used extensively in sports. From scouting to playbooks, like everything else it is all going electronic. If allowed during games, coaches and players could analyze opponents' tendencies and pick up on weaknesses with statistical and video applications designed to allow them to see things they could not see. It would take the game to a higher level. But is that level sportsmanlike? Is the use of the computer like better training or is it like a corked bat? Would it remove an element from sport that needs to be essentially human? Should computers be allowed in the dugout and on the sideline?

Pity Party

It's been a very long time since we've pulled this one out of moth balls.  The question is simple, "Whom do you feel sorry for?"

I feel sorry for the Chinese security officer who was in charge of overseeing Chen Guangcheng's house arrest.  I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to have to call your superior and tell him that the blind man under house arrest whom you were supposed to be watching had escaped.  How do you say "Inspector Clouseau" in Mandarin?

I feel sorry for people who thought they were going to be making a killing on the Facebook IPO only to have the price go down.  I guess there's a difference between liking a stock and "liking" a stock.

So, whom do you feel sorry for?

Are Honorary Degrees Earned?

It was commencement weekend and like all other schools we were honoring people with honorary degrees. Karl Mattson, our longtime chaplain and founder of Gettysburg College's Center for Public Service was so honored. Barbara Ehrenreich was supposed to be, but was unfortunately unable to attend at the last moment. Both wonderful people who have made a difference in the world.

It brings to mind words of a colleague who commented that honorary degrees are the only degrees granted, but not earned. Is this true?

How Common Are Epiphanies?

I went down the Center for American Progress in DC yesterday to record an interview with Rev. Welton Gaddy -- very nice and smart guy who tirelessly works not only for separation of church and state, but for a real caring, thoughtful brand of Christianity -- for his program "State of Belief." It was an interesting conversation in which he asked me interesting questions about the book and the relation between science, religion, and politics. He asked me the question I was expecting about meaningfulness for life in contemporary culture, but he also asked me about any epiphanies I had in working on the book. I had several aha moments connecting dots I never realized connected that way and so I chose one to discuss.

But the question interests me. The assumption -- and I think it is a fair one -- is that if someone spends a couple years working on a topic consistently, there are bound to be those moments of sudden insight. But not everyone has the luxury of researching a single topic and getting into the weeds where these hidden connections often remain obscured from view. Would it be a fair question, say, at a dinner party with someone new you've just met -- "tell me about the most recent epiphany you've had." (Yes, I realize that is not a question.) Are epiphanies a regular part of human life as normally lived? If someone asked you that (non)question at a dinner party would you be able to respond easily? And...what would your response be?