Really, TIME?

I'm just about ready to start up an ING fund for TIME.

It's slaying, folks. Slaying. Slay is not a noun. Slay is a verb.

I do like your rhyme, though.

Collaboration

Yeah, I've been in collaborations like this. Luckily, most of the time we come out with a far better document than we started with. But there are those times when working with someone only encruddens the end product.

Power of Words

If ever you doubt the power of words, or the power of a clever writer in finding just the right things to say, please watch this video and have your mind changed.

Science needs Communication, not more Science

Again in an ongoing series of Stump the Technical Writer, I offer the following from Science News: Climate Skepticism not Rooted in Science Illiteracy.

Janet Raloff writes:

People who strongly resist data indicating that human-induced climate change could spell catastrophe aren’t ignorant about science or numerical reasoning. Quite the opposite, a new study finds: High science literacy actually boosts the likelihood that certain people will challenge what constitutes credible climate science.

I can hear a lot of hard-wired technical writing minds out there exploding. “What, what, what? You mean all that time I spent explaining the science behind climate change (or nuclear power, or whatever sciencey aspect you’re trying to explain) is for naught? Not really. The ability to explain science in a clear way is still a valuable part of the technical writer’s art.

But it’s not enough. Per the study conducted by researchers at Yale, The Ohio State University, George Washington University, and Temple University concludes that receptivity to climate science “depends more on cultural factors such as attitudes towards commerce, government regulation, and individualism than on scientific literacy.”

“Simply improving the clarity of scientific information will not dispel public conflict,” Raloff quotes the study as saying.

So what is a technical writer to do?

Stick with the science, obviously – there’s no sense in slacking in clear explanations of scientific concepts just because their weight isn’t as heavy in some minds as in others.

Stop condescending, obviously. I know technical writers are supposed to be neutral, but I’ve read plenty of scientific writing that pretty much takes the reader by the hand, pats it a few times and then shuffles the average reader out of the room when the hard science comes flying.

Here’s something to consider: Take a debate class or two. Study persuasive writing techniques and critical thinking techniques. Come into the argument armed with reasonable discussion, refutation, exploration, etc., of the cultural factors which some readers lend more credence to.

Here’s what the study’s authors suggest:

One aim of science communication, we submit, should be to dispel this tragedy of the risk-perception commons. A communication strategy that focuses only on transmission of sound scientific information, our results suggest, is unlikely to do that. As worthwhile as it would be, simply improving the clarity of scientific information will not dispel public conflict so long as the climate-change debate continues to feature cultural meanings that divide citizens of opposing world-views.

As citizens understandably tend to conform their beliefs about societal risk to beliefs that predominate among their peers, communicators should endeavor to create a deliberative climate in which accepting the best available science does not threaten any group’s values. Effective strategies include use of culturally diverse communicators, whose affinity with different communities enhances their credibility, and information-framing techniques that invest policy solutions with resonances congenial to diverse groups. Perfecting such techniques through a new science of science communication is a public good of singular importance.

The difficulty lies not in explaining the science, the study concludes, but in demonstrating how the science should influence individuals whose perceptions of the individual impact of climate change lead them to believe nothing can be done on an individual basis to effect change or that nothing should be done because the proposed solutions impact too much on individual freedom, commerce, and other cultural factors. This is where many scientists get into trouble because it means “meddling” in other sciences (the soft kind) basically sociology and psychology. And this is where most science journalism gets into trouble because most science journalists put too much emphasis on explaining the science and too little on the sociological reasoning that is also evidently required – rather, they go to experts who repeat the false claim that it’s the science that’s not being understood (implying the average person is too stupid to understand it) and who frame the sociological aspects via derision and condescension, rather than from the perspective of understanding and attempting to shift the frame of reference.

A hard task, this.

Get the Protocol Droid

Once in a while, I’m reminded just how powerful words can be and why, as a writer, I should take more pains to make sure I’m using the right ones.

Here’s my latest reminder. To sum up, President Obama, in awarding a medal of freedom to a deceased World War II Polish resistance fighter, said “resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself.”

Poland is in a tizzy over Obama’s wording. As Slate’s Abby Ohlheiser points out, Poles in the past have objected when any Nazi death camp in their country is referred to as a “Polish” death camp. I can see why they would choose to quibble over such a distinction. The death camps were not instigated by the Polish – the Polish streak of anti-Semitism aside – by the Polish government, but, rather, by the Nazi occupiers. These are rightly Nazi death camps, not Polish ones.

So let’s take a look at how this likely happened: Editing.

I’m not sure how much of President Obama’s words were scripted beforehand – his reliance on teleprompters aside. If they were scripted, I can see easily someone looking at the more correct phrase “Nazi death camps in Poland” and thinking, “Let’s tighten that up a bit. Polish death camps. Much better.” Much better, but much less correct. And if the words were not scripted – which I think is the most likely scenario here – President Obama meant no disrespect, but was just looking for the shortest way to get himself from A to B in awarding the medal. Again, choosing a phrase easier on the tongue but one, in the eyes of the Polish, that is more than incorrect, but that is slanderous.

This is an excellent exercise at looking at tailoring your speech to the audience and the advantages of considering that audience not only when writing, but also when editing. We as editors should realize that as we deal with sensitive subjects is would be wise to put on a sensitive editing hat – difficult as we don’t have a C3PO-like protocol droid at our elbow, reminding us of the offense taken at such slights in the past. We are after all, fallible and not capable of retaining – let alone discovering – such gaffes so we can avoid them.

What can we do?

We can read our words carefully.

We can read a little history and try to figure out what might happen if we phrase things in a certain way.

We can look at things like Camp Westerbork, a Nazi transient camp in The Netherlands that started out as a refugee camp for German Jews fleeing the Nazis but ending as a transient camp for “undesireables” the Nazis shipped to Germany, and throw up our hands in despair at trying to know every nuance.
Or we could find someone Polish – or, better yet, some several people of Polish nationality – and ask them, “So, how is this phrasing going to go over in your homeland?”

And then pray they’re representative of their countrymen.

Befuddled by Consumed

UPDATE: Now reading "Barbarians at the Gate, the Fall of RJR Nabisco," by Bryan Burroughs and John Helyar." It's a great companion piece to "Consumed," as it outlines capitalism's shift from civic good to a culture of consumerism through the eyes of one company that got too interested in money rather than doing good. It's a re-read, of course. I re-read most of my books. It's a fascinating tale, well-told.

Taking on consumer capitalism and finding a “solution” for its woes is, of course, a tall order.

But after reading Benjamin Barber’s captivating yet confusing “Consumed,” I feel at a loss as to what I can do to combat consumer capitalism and – worse yet – what Barber’s solutions are to begin with.

If I’m reading his conclusion properly, he advocates things like massive boycotts – doomed to failure even before they take the vows – and some kind of new-fangled, extra-national, citizen-oriented, world-wide group or consortium meant to circumvent capitalism and thus bring it to its knees.

I guess I’ve got a simpler solution: Turn off the TV and buy only what you need.

That seems rich coming from a guy who bought a trampoline and a love seat this weekend. Did we really need either item? I suppose not. Could the money have been better spent combating hunger and such? Yeah. Am I more of a “culture jammer,” one operating against the grain of consumerism by eschewing TV and most advertising? Yes, sir. Proud of it.

But to Barber, this kind of behavior is part of the problem, because it’s not civic enough. I’m not doing things to help my fellow man avoid the onslaught of advertising, especially that oriented towards children, nor am I encouraging them to cut down on their consumerist ways. Barber goes on at length about how we need a civic solution but succeeds in alienating those who adhere to any religion, painting them all as part of the anti-civic problem and turning to Big Civics – in the form of a nebulous non-national NGO to take on the role of the strict father/nurturing mother that he decries so much in politics.

So I’m confused. His solution seems to just be a retread of what he sees as part of the problem. At least by doing what I’m doing, I’m living in a world that is virtually free of the evils of McDonalds and the Nike Swoosh. And I know there are many like me out there.

I guess what it comes down to is that he’s proposing a secular version of the scriptural advice to live in the world, but not to be of the world.

And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness.

(Alma 41:11)

Suspicions Confirmed. $4.99, Please.

Here’s a startling revelation from the brains over at the Taleist.com blog:

Not everyone who is self-publishing ebooks is making gobs of money. Or any money at all.

Here’s another startling revelation from the brains over at the Taleist.com blog:

Authors who seek professional services from editing to illustrations to formatting are doing better than run-of-the-mill schlubs doing everything on their own from a closet.

Of course, there’s a lot more detail in “Not A Gold Rush,” a report Taleist compiled from just over 1,000 responses to a 61-question survey they sent out to self-published authors. But you have to pay $4.99 to Amazon.com for that detail. Go figure that these folks want to make money laffing it up over the folks who aren’t.

Of course, that’s a cynical take on the subject from a schlub who, thusfar, has refused to pay a penny for any of the ebooks he’s read (of course, I also buy used physical books for pennies on the dollar from thrift stores, so you can see I’m not going to be a great income source for any author). But still, you’d think Taleist.com could throw us a freakin’ bone.

Bone thrown courtesy Taleist.com Self-Publishing Survey

I guess my irritation over the whole thing is that the survey, even in its mightily-condensed form or as reported through British media outlets is a simple blinding flash of the obvious for anyone who has even an inkling of what this self-publishing ebook phenomenon is like. It’s nothing that the likes of Nathan Bransford or David Gaughran have already said. Sure, it’s got the heft of a 1,000-respondent survey behind it adding a little extra weight to the anecdotes, but then again Bransford and Gaugarin go beyond the anecdotes as well.

Am I bitter that I can’t read the entirety of their report for free? A little. But likely less bitter than I would be if I’d paid the $4.99 in order to read what I anticipate is already monnaie courant in the self-publishing community.

Saying the same thing just in a a different way: The backbone of writing.

Anyone with only a rudimentary knowledge of the book publishing industry in general knows that the vast majority of published authors out there aren’t making a living on their writing alone, nor that the top earners are pulling in the vast majority of the cash. There’s no reason self-published ebooks should be any different.

There is still that democratizing, self-liberating portion of self-publishing that even if it doesn’t bring cash, at least it brings satisfaction, per the authors (telling the Guardian, certainly not us, for free):

But money isn't always the primary goal for self-published writers, they discovered, with only 5% considering themselves “unsuccessful.” The respondents were also still keen to continue self-publishing: nearly half plan to release more titles this year than they did last, and 24% have a whopping five or more works due for publication this year. This means, said Cornford and Lewis, that the 695 respondents who told them about their future publishing plans will be releasing about 48 new books between them for each week in 2012.

I’ve read some of the self-published dreck out there. I’ll likely publish some self-published dreck this summer. But what’s fun is that now, thanks to this technology, we can do it. I have no illusions that I’ll make any money publishing this way. That is not my intent. It just might be theirs.

Terrafirming at 3 AM

NOTE: This is what happens when you get a novel idea at 3 am and try to type it out on your Kindle Fire without being fully awake.

Man who talks a lot about atomic science but he's really just an expert in tax code. He is member of minority group persecuted by those in power one day he is away from home doing something, happens to find young kid from his neighborhood who is lost. They meet up with kid's mother and try to go home but their ghetto has been shut off from outside using terraforming technology. The bad guys built in one day sn enormous dirt wall around the ghetto, topped with a ring road tor easy travel that id how they git the project off the ground without suspicion. bad guys won't t let these trio go into ghetto because they think he is atomic scientist and they need atom energy to do greater terrafirming projects. They have his tax accounting book that's in his native language and are convinced hr xsn feet them the power they need so he bluffs them trying at the same tine to find out what is going on inside ghetto they are building enormous buildings for use to make atomic plants and such with slave laborious inside.

Obviously lots of parallels with Nazis and Jews but also obviously art in different planet more technologically advanced in some areas. Beginning space travel, but rudimentary computers, no mass media, no Internet.

Lots of allusions to Kafka's trial, bureaucrats just doing their job not seeing or knowing the big picture.

We're never clear on why this minority group is hated, neither by the haters or by the conjecture of the hated.

There are some from majority group also in ghetyo they needed lots of land for the projecct and they react in varying degrees to their situation. Man's friend Yim never understood "difference" in groups, he is only interested in reading and collecting butterflies. Others react with dismay at being trapped with the minority.

Make it obtuse yet blear ghat yge oppressive government is progressive yet regressive, so yge liberals out there don't have another conservative dystopia yo crow about. Like Lois lowry.

They are building enormous plant to make fissile material and rickets so they can send a bunch of stuff up to start progressine moon colony to terraform so there's a place with no pollution for the ultralibs to go live.

Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

. . .Because They Love You

Yeah, they're hippies. But sometimes hippies can deliver powerful messages.

See, there's this in Benjamin Barber's Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole:

Measured by the time alloted to them, commercialism's pedagogical competitors -- education, parenting, socialization by church or civic group -- come out on the short sinde. Teachers struggle for the attention of their students for at most twenty or thirty hours a week, perhaps thirty weeks a year, in settings they do not fully control and in institutions that are often ridiculed in the popular media. (Animal House has become a more popular emblem of the modern university than the ivory tower.) Pastors, rabbis, imams, and priests get an hour or two a week with that every smaller minority of their congregations that actually attend services. Parents are embattled "gatekeepers" at best, who year by year watch their hold on their children compromised, eroded, out-flanked, and eventually wholly loosened by their rivals in the marketplace, who often target them as impediments standing in the way of access to children, or try to exploit them as conduits to children. The tru tutors of late consumer capitalize society as measured by time are those who control the media monopolies, the aggressive content purveyors, shameless lords of the omnipresent pixes, who capture sixty or seventy hours a week, fifty-two weeeks a year, of children's time and attention.

Scared the hell out of me when I read it. Then realied maybe we're doing right by our kids by limiting their computer usage and television exposure. We do have wi-fi in the house, but none of them have computers or devices -- even cell phones -- they can access whenever they want. We have movies, but no cable or satellite television. As a family, we watch less than six hours of television a week, and when we're at computers it's more often or not that we're working, not playing. This summer, the kids will spend six weeks with their mother at Island Park Scout Camp, far away from computers and TV.

So I have to consider: How are we filling the time freed up by our lack of computer and televison babysitters? We do play games occasionally with the kids. We teach them to work in the yard. The youngest two dance. The oldest is involved in Scouts. And they read a lot, an awful lot. And they draw. They play with LEGOs and other toys.

Maybe we're doing something right for a change.

Richard Armour, May 22, 2012

Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
None’ll come, and then a lot’ll

Unless of course that bottle rigid
Is coated with a structured liquid

Which helps the ketchup or the mayo
Make a freshet of an arroyo