tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53125950995750932312024-02-18T20:38:40.139-05:00SideWise ThinkingProject management and business creativity from a SideWise perspective.Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-154835988733949702014-09-28T05:48:00.002-04:002014-09-28T05:49:25.309-04:00Do Not Patronize PM Study!I just finished deleting the sixth or seventh spam comment from an outfit calling itself "PMStudy." All the comments read something like this:<br />
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olivia jennifer has left a new comment on your post "Project Owner, Project Manager": </blockquote>
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I would say that a PMP is highly respected within both IT & non-IT communities where strong project management skills are required. If you plan on a long term career as a project manager, then yes, even with your level of experience, I would suggest getting your PMP. You can prepare yourself for the exam in one of the leading training providers like http://www.pmstudy.com . You can do minimal prep-work to get 40 PMI® Contact Hours and apply to PMI for PMP Exam before the class begins. </blockquote>
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I wrote the company to ask them to stop spamming my blog, and they denied they'd ever done so. A few weeks later, the comments started appearing again. A second email got no response at all.<br />
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I'd never heard of PMStudy before these spam comments started showing up. Although they've gotten status as a PMI Registered Education Provider, that doesn't mean very much — there are many, many companies that offer top-notch PMP prep programs. They are the only one I've encountered, however, that feels it needs to resort to this sort of spamming.<br />
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If you're looking for high-quality PMP prep training, look around. You'll find many companies whose marketing practices have integrity, and whose quality I can vouch for. But companies that spam repeatedly after being asked not to do so, and who lie about it when caught, do not deserve support.<br />
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Stand up for no spam — don't patronize PMStudy. Thanks.<br />
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<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-87587291921318610382014-06-05T08:59:00.001-04:002015-06-04T10:57:29.261-04:00Political Animals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel."</div>
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<i>King George III of the United Kingdom, born June 4, 1738</i></div>
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What motivates this blog post is the <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/389983648955816185/">quote from King George III </a>above, which appeared on one of my Pinterest boards: <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/dobson2688/dobsons-improbable-quote-of-the-day/">Dobson's Improbable Quote of the Day</a> for June 4. It had a lot of resonance for me: while George III said it aloud, a lot of people — including me — feel that way, at least from time to time. I didn't aim it at left or right, because that particular feeling is independent of which side of the fence you fall on.<br />
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Within a minute or two of sharing the link on Facebook, a comment appeared: "Substitute 'racist' for 'traitor,' and you have Barack Obama." I deleted it at once and sent a message to the poster explaining my desire to keep politics off my wall.<br />
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It was some hours before I checked Facebook again. Obviously, that quote had triggered strong political reactions, because now I had <i>two</i> political comments: "Didn't realize the tea party was so old," and "Still the official motto of the Republican party?" People on both sides clearly saw this quote as describing the attitudes of their political opponents.</div>
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There are, I think, few things in the world more useless than having a political argument on Facebook. There are never any winners, only losers to one degree or another. Those who've known me for a long time know I am a man of passionate political opinions, with an unfortunate tendency to use scorched earth rhetoric when provoked — and I provoke more easily than I should. This tends not to end well.<br />
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One of the most popular posts in this history of this blog appeared March 2, 2010: <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/03/youre-not-being-reasonable.html">You're Not Being Reasonable</a>. In that post, I tried to establish some objective standards for reasonableness in political discussions, virtually all of which I've violated at one time or another. The cost of those violations has been high: I've lost several friendships I valued. Mind you, it takes two to tango, but my own behavior is the only thing I can control, and I look at my own lapses of reasonableness and decorum as cause for shame and embarrassment.<br />
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My obsession with <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/01/index-of-cognitive-biases.html">cognitive biases</a> (collected in my personal magazine <a href="http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/RandomJottings06.pdf">Random Jottings 6</a>) and <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/fallacies">argumentative fallacies</a> (only partially done, and on my ever-growing list of projects to complete One Of These Days) has done a lot to convince me of the futility of political argument. <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2009/10/unknown-knowns-survey-of-biases.html">Confirmation bias</a> alone, the tendency to interpret information in a way that conforms to your preexisting beliefs, derails most discussions before they get started. None of us can shake personal bias altogether, but we can work to limit its effects on our thinking.<br />
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Because of the operation of cognitive bias (I include my own bias as well as that of others), I can't think of a single situation in which someone's mind has been changed through a Facebook argument, or indeed through an argument of any kind. When I have changed my mind, it's not because of someone's argument but rather someone's behavior or personal actions, or my evolving understanding of the world around me. If I have changed someone else's mind, it is for the same reasons.<br />
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My social media activity is a combination of personal and professional. A lot of my Facebook friends are actually friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, but many are professional relationships (LinkedIn has been pretty useless in that regard), and a surprising number are people I've actually met and gotten to know through Facebook itself. (Having grown up in science fiction fandom, I'm used to having friends I've never actually met in person.) Some of my Facebook friends have political opinions I find congenial, but a whole lot of them don't.<br />
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Mixing the personal and the professional has its dangers. For the first few years I was on Facebook, I mostly posted a daily "Dobson's Law" of project management (<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Dobson%27s%20Laws">collected here</a>). I learned a lot from the discussions that followed. For both personal and professional reasons, I began wishing people happy birthday on Facebook (sadly, I've neglected that in recent months), and started adding a list of shared birthdays. That led to my second blog, <a href="http://improbhistory.blogspot.com/">Dobson's Improbable History</a> (<i>pace </i>Peabody), a more-or-less daily post of events and people associated with each day, which in turn supports a series of books I'm writing: <a href="http://www.timespinnerpress.com/">The Story of a Special Day</a>, one for every day of the year. (Only $7.95 print, $2.99 ebook — it's like a birthday card they'll never throw away!™ — <i>adv.</i>)<br />
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In other words, there are plenty of reasons for me to stay out of politics on Facebook.<br />
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My formative political experience was Alabama during the civil rights years. We supported civil rights in a time and place where that was an extreme minority position. My father considered marching in Selma, and only refrained because he was told his job was on the line. He was generally unafraid of confrontation and had a take-no-prisoners attitude toward those with whom he disagreed, and in that, I took after him. I believed — and still believe — that the segregation side was not merely wrong, but evil. That's not to say I thought the people who held those beliefs were necessarily evil, but when you call someone's beliefs evil, it's hard for them not to take it personally. I didn't have a lot of friends in those days.<br />
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Strangely, however, I now call lots of the same people my friends, though in many cases my feelings about their political opinions remain unchanged. Perhaps it's the shared Stockholm syndrome experience of high school; perhaps it's simply the realization that personal history matters. I can get along with people of dramatically different beliefs, but the way to do that is to focus on what we agree on and what we share, not what separates us. At least that's the plan — the execution has been less than perfect.<br />
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Yes, I occasionally find political pieces I want to repost, or comments I feel compelled to make. I created a Facebook list of people likely to find my political positions congenial, and when I can't refrain from political comment, at least I don't feel the need to rub it in the noses of those who disagree. I also feel more free to jump into other people's Facebook discussions, especially when I agree with the original poster. After all, <i>they </i>brought up the subject, not me. It's rare for me to comment when someone posts an opinion I find repugnant; instead, I simply hide the most regular offenders from my timeline and thus keep my blood pressure under control.<br />
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I can never tell what posts will draw political reactions. In addition to Dobson's Improbable History and Dobson's Improbable Quote of the Day, I also explore my fascination with maps on a Pinterest board called, oddly enough, <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/dobson2688/more-fun-with-maps/">More Fun With Maps!</a> I generally share them without much in the way of comment: a map should speak for itself. Some maps, however, lend themselves to one political position or another. I avoid sharing some maps because of the likelihood of triggering a political argument, but that doesn't always do the trick. Maps I think of as fairly neutral have drawn sharply partisan responses. The same thing is true of quotes. Honestly, I didn't think the King George III quote was going to provoke this kind of reaction.<br />
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It is much easier, of course, to see the mote in thy brother's eye than the beam that is in thine own eye. We notice the horrible and disgusting things people on the other side say about our side much more clearly than the horrible and disgusting things that our fellow travelers say about them. Whatever the merits of one position over the other, none of us have clean hands when it comes to rhetorical excess. While I'm wary of false equivalence, or "both sides do it," as a general argument, in this particular case, I think it's a fair observation. I wrote this blog post, and then shared it.<br />
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The next comment was political as well: "I stand firmly for the Mugwump party."<br />
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I appreciated the sentiment. After all, politics is a Mug's game.</div>
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<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-90980802939459841622012-12-19T10:00:00.000-05:002012-12-19T10:00:10.018-05:00Eyewitness to Murder, Part 5<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7QCWvhrrzRau-zD0lOFn1WuJ95BmtjEtoYFyqHvEKoIAg25gajV-_f9kdUnRPQPH9QYgFuACFqoLmLQksatjeB82sYeuD0BWsOqfo4eQzEosGkjb2UZ6VUt5M-Q6pPdSYt1956ENZNih/s1600/Mark+Felsher+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7QCWvhrrzRau-zD0lOFn1WuJ95BmtjEtoYFyqHvEKoIAg25gajV-_f9kdUnRPQPH9QYgFuACFqoLmLQksatjeB82sYeuD0BWsOqfo4eQzEosGkjb2UZ6VUt5M-Q6pPdSYt1956ENZNih/s400/Mark+Felsher+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Felsher</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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On April 13, 1975, an unemployed Silver Spring carpenter named Michael Edward Pearch dressed in his Army fatigues, strapped a machete to his chest, shrugged on a knapsack with 250 rounds of ammunition, and loaded his .45 automatic pistol. He drove to the nearby Wheaton Plaza shopping mall and began killing. Within the next half hour, he shot seven people, all African-American. Two of them died. I don’t want to mention Pearch’s name without also listing his victims, so here they are.<br />
<ul>
<li>John L. Sligh, 43, of Rockville, Maryland: died.</li>
<li>Laureen D. Sligh, 40, his wife: wounded.</li>
<li>Dr. Ralph C. Gomes, also of Rockville: minor injuries when his car crashed.</li>
<li>Harold S. Navy, Jr., 17: wounded.</li>
<li>Connie L. Stanley, 42, of Washington, DC: killed.</li>
<li>Rosalyn Stanley, 26, of Annapolis, Maryland: wounded.</li>
<li>Bryant Lamont Williams, 20, of Rockville: wounded.</li>
</ul>
Pearch died at the hands of the police: “suicide by cop.”<br />
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Two years ago, I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyewitness-to-murder.html">told that story </a>on my blog, and last month I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/11/eyewitness-to-murder-part-two.html">summarized some of my encounters with others</a> touched by the same experience. The tragedy at <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/12/eyewitness-to-murder-part-3.html">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> led to my revisiting the story, and in particular telling about my encounter with Mark Felsher, one of the last people to talk to the killer. <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/12/eyewitness-to-murder-part-4.html">Yesterday</a>, I told the story about how Felsher first met Pearch. Today I'll share the final chapter of that part of the story.<br />
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<b>Mowing the Lawn</b><br />
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As Mark entered his teenage years, he spent less time camping in the Greenbelt woods and more time working for spending money. Each Saturday he mowed lawns for a landscape service run by a family friend, going as far afield as Silver Spring, a few towns west of Greenbelt in neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland. The owner, Howie, would pick Mark up (he was still too young to drive), and the two would work together. Mark was fifteen years old.<br />
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This particular day, Howie told Mark he had a new customer on Dennis Avenue in Silver Spring. As the two got to work, Howie began working around the right side of the house while Mark started in the front, near the sidewalk. The owner, a woman, arrived at the same time and took in some brown paper bags of groceries. Howie and she exchanged a few words.<br />
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The house was old and somewhat neglected. The windows were unpainted and dark, with blinds pulled down. Shortly after the owner went inside, the door opened again and a man walked out.<br />
Mark initially didn’t recognize the man, and assumed he was going to talk to Howie about the work, but instead the man walked confidently and deliberately up to Mark. “You’re Mark Felsher,” he said. It wasn’t a question.<br />
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It had been two years since the incident in the woods, and it took Mark a few seconds to place the man. “Mike Phipps?” he asked tentatively.<br />
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Mike shook his head. “Sorry, that’s not really my name. It’s Pearch. Mike Pearch. I was just toying with you guys. I said my name was ‘Mike Phipps’ after the quarterback, but my real name is Mike Pearch.” Mike Phipps was an NFL quarterback with the Cleveland Browns, though Mark didn’t know that at the time.<br />
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The whole conversation, Felsher said, was uncomfortable. Pearch was intense and focused, not at relaxed as he’d been during their time camping. “I just could not catch up to where he was,” Mark said of the conversation. “It was as though he had seen me yesterday and I had not seen him for two years.”<br />
Pearch had recently come back from Germany, but according to Mark sounded like he was visiting relatives there rather than having been deployed. He told Mark he’d been engaged to be married, but Mark got the sense that the engagement was over.<br />
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The real focus of the conversation, however, was about falconry. Pearch had gotten into the sport, and was very passionate about it. But Mark had grass to cut and his boss was watching, so he ended the conversation, fully expecting to see Mike again when they came back to cut the grass.<br />
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Mark didn’t think much of the conversation at the time. It was odd, he thought, that Mike had recognized him so readily after two years, but that was all. People change a lot between the ages of 13 and 15, and if you don’t know somebody well, it’s altogether possible that you wouldn’t recognize them after two years of adolescent growth. But Mike Pearch had recognized him with only a glimpse through a window.<br />
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It was Saturday, April 12, 1975, in the late afternoon.<br />
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<b>Those Who Watch</b><br />
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As an ostensible witness to the situation, as I’ve mentioned previously, I failed to grasp what was going on around me, and I still feel bad about my failure. Mark Felsher told me that one of the reasons he’d gotten in touch is that he also felt bad about his failure to read Pearch’s character correctly, and wonders if there is anything he could have said or done that would have changed the events of April 13, 1975.<br />
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In both our cases, I suspect the answer is that even armed with 20-20 hindsight, there was little if anything either of us could have done. But that doesn’t change the feeling of responsibility. I imagine that even the heroes of Sandy Hook Elementary will carry the same feeling — although they did more than either Mark or me, they will always wonder if there was more they could have done, if there were additional steps they could have taken.<br />
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The feeling of helplessness and stupidity in the face of terrible events stays with you, and perhaps it’s right that it should. Regardless of what might or might not have been possible, the human need to try should always be paramount in our minds.<br />
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<b>More of the Story</b><br />
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Thanks to Mark, I've been able to learn something of the story of two more of the victims: Rosalyn Stanley and Harold Navy. (Navy was the victim I saw.) In addition, I've just received another comment from someone who also knew Navy.<br />
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It's usually the killer who gets most of the focus in stories like this, not merely because of the sensationalism but also because of our human need to make sense from horror. But without the stories of the victims, it doesn't mean a thing. Stay tuned.<br />
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<i>More to come…</i><br />
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-781533804795240692012-12-18T10:00:00.000-05:002012-12-18T10:00:00.612-05:00Eyewitness to Murder, Part 4<br />
On April 13, 1975, an unemployed Silver Spring carpenter named Michael Edward Pearch dressed in his Army fatigues, strapped a machete to his chest, shrugged on a knapsack with 250 rounds of ammunition, and loaded his .45 automatic pistol. He drove to the nearby Wheaton Plaza shopping mall and began killing. Within the next half hour, he shot seven people, all African-American. Two of them died. I don’t want to mention Pearch’s name without also listing his victims, so here they are.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>John L. Sligh, 43, of Rockville, Maryland: died.</li>
<li>Laureen D. Sligh, 40, his wife: wounded.</li>
<li>Dr. Ralph C. Gomes, also of Rockville: minor injuries when his car crashed.</li>
<li>Harold S. Navy, Jr., 17: wounded.</li>
<li>Connie L. Stanley, 42, of Washington, DC: killed.</li>
<li>Rosalyn Stanley, 26, of Annapolis, Maryland: wounded.</li>
<li>Bryant Lamont Williams, 20, of Rockville: wounded.</li>
</ul>
Pearch died at the hands of the police: “suicide by cop.”<br />
<br />
Two years ago, I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyewitness-to-murder.html">told that story </a>on my blog, and last month I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/11/eyewitness-to-murder-part-two.html">summarized some of my encounters with others</a> touched by the same experience. In October of this year, I heard from Mark Felsher, who had known the killer, Michael Edward Pearch. He wrote:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEO3M7SuR1S3BDEHBtiTYsdpIt2C8Si1Gm5ZyqqNYq-Q58jmKKPd47yopJZsEe4FdAP5lKz7cEsuaKBMH-ATbqwaBB_jPSS8A7m1yy6mgzschDpRqOnDizXAiaRzTr9HJW4oDfRQXVZLi/s1600/Mark+Felsher+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEO3M7SuR1S3BDEHBtiTYsdpIt2C8Si1Gm5ZyqqNYq-Q58jmKKPd47yopJZsEe4FdAP5lKz7cEsuaKBMH-ATbqwaBB_jPSS8A7m1yy6mgzschDpRqOnDizXAiaRzTr9HJW4oDfRQXVZLi/s320/Mark+Felsher+2.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Felsher</td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“My connection to this event is before the fact. I had met Mike Pearch a couple of years before the shooting and spent a lot of time with him camping over three days. With only one exception, our paths did not cross again for about two years, until I happened to randomly wind up doing yard work at his mother's house about 24 hours before the shooting began. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Mike recognized me and came out of the house to talk. The conversation lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes and mostly covered the past two years. I know that there was much more behind his actions, but I have always been haunted by the question of whether something about that conversation may have been the final trigger for him to snap. I strongly suspect that the whole time he was speaking with me that he already had at least some idea about what he was going to do and perhaps he had already planned every detail. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Not that I think it would have made much of a difference but I was never interviewed by the police. I don't think they ever knew much of anything about me or that I had just spoken to Mike. I was only fifteen at the time and could not figure out what to do with what I knew. My parents were even afraid to talk to me about it beyond being the ones to inform me about the shooting. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This whole episode is to me like a manila file folder that has no place in the file cabinet. I try to put it somewhere; maybe in the wrong drawer, maybe in the trash, maybe I try to bury it under other things but sooner or later it keeps reappearing on top of the file cabinet. I suspect you and others, connected to this event, feel the same way. And always the question, ‘Is there anything I could have done?’ </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Obviously, there is not a thing I can do to change the past but if there is any way that sharing what I know can bring some relief to someone else affected by this tragedy then perhaps I could finally put this in the file cabinet under, ‘Something good finally came out of that part of my life.’”</blockquote>
I began corresponding with Mark, and on October 21 of this year met him in person. Mark’s a few years younger than I. (He was fifteen at the time of the incident, and I was 22.) He’s a home improvement contractor by trade, with a background in leading youth camps. Highly religious, he’s involved with his church and family. He’s been married for 29 years and has four children with ages ranging from 20 to 23. He currently lives in North Carolina.<br />
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Mark had a job to do in the DC suburbs, so we agreed to get together on the Sunday after his work was finished. I drove to Greenbelt, where we met at Generous Joe’s Deli — Mark had gone to school with the owner. Over fried shrimp baskets, we talked about our lives and about our involvement with the Wheaton murders.<br />
<br />
Mark — like Pearch — grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland, a planned suburban community located in Prince Georges County, which borders the District of Columbia. Like the two other “green” towns built by the United States Resettlement Administration in the 1930s, the town was designed as a self-sufficient cooperative community, surrounded by (as the name implies) a belt of forest. Eleanor Roosevelt was actively involved in the layout of the town, and appeared at its official inauguration. Greenbelt’s downtown is a lovely (if a bit run-down) example of Art Deco architecture. At the time of its founding, it was officially a segregated community (a proposed annex that would welcome black residents was scuttled in the face of local opposition), and even by the 1970s, black residents in Greenbelt were highly unusual.<br />
<br />
<b>The Mysterious Camper</b><br />
<br />
For Mark Felsher, the undeveloped “green belt” that surrounded the town was a boy’s paradise. Along with his boyhood friend, Mike King, he explored the woods on an almost daily basis, building secret forts and camping out. Although they were only a short distance from the townhouse row where they both lived, it was easy to believe that all the civilization around them had disappeared. Both were members of the local Boy Scout troop; both loved camping and the outdoors. He was thirteen at the time.<br />
<br />
It was on one of their hiking trips, not too far off one of the winding paths through the forest, that Mike King suddenly stopped and told Mark that someone was nearby. Mark looked around, but saw no one, until Mike King pointed to a small patch of trees where an older man, perhaps in his early twenties, nearly camouflaged in the dense underbrush, stood watching them.<br />
<br />
The boys introduced themselves, and the man told them his name was Mike Phipps. (It would be some years before Mark learned his real name.) "Phipps" was also camping in the woods, but on more of a semi-permanent basis. He had built a semi-log cabin, with three straight sides and an angled top, which served as a base over which he’d stretched a tent. The whole camp was artfully concealed in the woods, effectively invisible to any casual observer.<br />
<br />
Mike Phipps was friendly, if a bit guarded, and the two boys decided to set up their own camp near him. For three days they lived near each other in the woods. Their conversation was limited. Mike had been a member of the same Boy Scout troop some years previously, and as a lifelong resident of Greenbelt, they knew various other people in common. He had been in the Army, he told them. The conversation didn’t go into a lot of depth.<br />
<br />
After a couple of days, Mike took Mark aside and pointed out that he was camping out for solitude, and politely suggested that the boys might want to find a different location.<br />
<br />
About six months later, Mark saw Mike Phipps again. He was walking briskly along the trail beside a thin and winding creek, not too far from the old campsite. He was clearly in a hurry. He waved at Mark when he saw him, but didn’t slow down. Where he had come from and where he was going were both a mystery.<br />
<br />
Two more years would pass before the third and final encounter.<br />
<br />
<i>More to come...</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-31286957532508861002012-12-17T11:33:00.000-05:002012-12-17T11:33:37.411-05:00Eyewitness to Murder, Part 3<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbcXxwl04RE7xRmPYOyHn2fAWwK94UCQUPGBrrVQm0lpTipBBTwbb6q9qHzgoSihpBWZCSEF02-opBUqmoUhH9NVCFutWhKf8N4IgSTiDoJgPPpV0u25PorcPW4qB7xuFk01w_5gCq55H/s1600/sandy-hook-elementary-school-in-newtown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbcXxwl04RE7xRmPYOyHn2fAWwK94UCQUPGBrrVQm0lpTipBBTwbb6q9qHzgoSihpBWZCSEF02-opBUqmoUhH9NVCFutWhKf8N4IgSTiDoJgPPpV0u25PorcPW4qB7xuFk01w_5gCq55H/s320/sandy-hook-elementary-school-in-newtown.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandy Hook Elementary School Students</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Mass Shootings in the US in 2012</b><br />
<br />
In the wake of the Sandy Hook killings, I did a little research on some of the other mass shooting incidents in the United States this year.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>December 15: Birmingham, Alabama triple killing, four dead including the shooter.</li>
<li>December 15: St. Vincent’s Hospital (also Birmingham, Alabama), three wounded, shooter killed.</li>
<li>December 14: Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 26 dead at the scene, including 20 children; one offsite death; shooter dead.</li>
<li>December 11: Happy Valley shopping mall shooting, two killed including the shooter, one injured.</li>
<li>October 21: Brookfield, Wisconsin, spa killing, three killed, four injured; shooter killed himself.</li>
<li>September 27: Accent Signage Systems shooting, eight injured and dead including the killer.</li>
<li>August 13: College Station, Texas, three killed including the shooter, four injured.</li>
<li>August 5: Sikh Temple shooting, ten injured and killed including the shooter.</li>
<li>July 20: Aurora Theater shooting, seventy injured and killed; shooter arrested.</li>
<li>May 30: Seattle café shooting, seven injured and killed including the shooter.</li>
<li>April 6: Tulsa spree killing, three killed, two injured, shooters arrested.</li>
<li>April 2: Oikos University killings, ten injured and killed; shooter arrested.</li>
<li>March 8: Duquesne University shooting, two killed including the shooter, seven injured.</li>
<li>February 27: Chardon High School shooting, three killed, two injured, shooter arrested.</li>
<li>February 21: Su Jung Health Sauna shooting, five injured and killed including the shooter.</li>
</ol>
<br />
At least that’s what turned up in a few minutes of Google searching. There may well be more. In fact, in the last thirty years, there have been at least <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map">62 such incidents</a>. That doesn’t include my own encounter with mass murder, which took place more than thirty years ago.<br />
<br />
<br />
On April 13, 1975, Michael Edward Pearch dressed in his Army fatigues, strapped a machete to his chest, shrugged on a knapsack with 250 rounds of ammunition, and loaded his .45 automatic pistol. He drove to the nearby Wheaton Plaza shopping mall and began killing. Within the next half hour, he shot seven people, all African-American. Two of them died. I don’t want to mention Pearch’s name without also listing his victims, so here they are.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>John L. Sligh, 43, of Rockville, Maryland: died.</li>
<li>Laureen D. Sligh, 40, his wife: wounded.</li>
<li>Dr. Ralph C. Gomes, also of Rockville: minor injuries when his car crashed.</li>
<li>Harold S. Navy, Jr., 17: wounded.</li>
<li>Connie L. Stanley, 42, of Washington, DC: killed.</li>
<li>Rosalyn Stanley, 26, of Annapolis, Maryland: wounded.</li>
<li>Bryant Lamont Williams, 20, of Rockville: wounded.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Pearch died at the hands of the police; “suicide by cop.”<br />
<br />
<br />
Two years ago, I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyewitness-to-murder.html">told that story </a>on my blog, and last month I <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/11/eyewitness-to-murder-part-two.html">summarized some of my encounters with others</a> touched by the same experience. In October of this year, I heard from Mark Felsher, who had known the killer, Michael Edward Pearch. That story will appear over the next two days.<br />
<br />
<i>More to come...</i><br />
Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-42763626613149019302012-11-19T15:22:00.002-05:002012-11-19T15:26:26.824-05:00By Hook or by Crook (Watergate Part 10)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29nnEG6tD451-eMpU2jIaN16qVbp3jRZfNge40JdvzKTS4Bzj_IXPl_7wyrGBqTIcSWSQNCORz3eL49Fzi_XKWjq0aWq8lhEZWFPZKU4mVhkzyhoRZR3r80hvQ-_7Xvjzd805nNZu99bR/s1600/PH2009111203517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29nnEG6tD451-eMpU2jIaN16qVbp3jRZfNge40JdvzKTS4Bzj_IXPl_7wyrGBqTIcSWSQNCORz3eL49Fzi_XKWjq0aWq8lhEZWFPZKU4mVhkzyhoRZR3r80hvQ-_7Xvjzd805nNZu99bR/s320/PH2009111203517.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nixon says, "I am not a crook," 11/17/1973</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Watergate">here</a>. This week, Richard Nixon says, “I am not a crook.”</i><br />
<br />
Immediately after Alexander Butterfield revealed the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/08/nixon-resigns-watergate-part-8.html">existence of Richard Nixon’s White House taping system</a>, the tapes themselves became the central issue of the unfolding Watergate scandal.<br />
<br />
While certain key facts (the burglary itself, the link to the Committee to Re-Elect the President) were not in dispute, the critical question was the one being asked by Watergate Select Committee chairman Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina: “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Now that tapes were available, that question could be settled definitely once and for all.<br />
<br />
Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox filed a subpoena for eight of the tapes almost immediately, and for his trouble was fired in the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/10/saturday-nights-alright-for-firing.html">Saturday Night Massacre</a>. The backlash forced Nixon to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued to press for the tapes.<br />
<br />
The Saturday Night Massacre took place on October 19, 1973. Just about a month later, on November 17, 1973, Richard Nixon traveled to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for a question and answer session before the 400 members of Associated Press Managing Editor’s Association.<br />
<br />
As expected, the first questions involved the Watergate scandal and its consequences for the nation. The president of the Managing Editor’s Association wondered if Watergate was serious enough to take down the country.<br />
<br />
“Mr. President,” he asked, “This morning, Governor Askew of Florida addressed this group and recalled the words of Benjamin Franklin. When leaving the Constitutional Convention he was asked, ‘What have you given us, sir, a monarch or a republic?’ Franklin answered, ‘A republic, sir, if you can keep it.’ Mr. President, in the prevailing pessimism of the lingering matter we call Watergate, can we keep that republic, sir, and how?” Nixon assured him that the Republic would continue.<br />
<br />
The Louisville-Courier asked about two of the subpoenaed tapes that had gone missing. Nixon replied that he had other information — Dictaphone belts, diary notes, and telephone call recordings — that would substantiate his claims of innocence. The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle followed up, but gained no more information.<br />
<br />
The Rochester Times-Union asked about the connection to the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/09/huntliddy-special-project-1-watergate.html">Ellsberg case</a>, and Nixon replied that it was not part of Watergate, and should be considered a national security matter. The Detroit News followed with a softball question that allowed Nixon to once again reassure the public that everything was under control. The St. Petersburg Times asked about Nixon’s praise of Ehrlichman and Haldeman. Nixon replied, “First, I hold that both men and others who have been charged are guilty until I have evidence that they are not guilty.” (The president of the association later corrected Nixon, who agreed that he had misspoken.) The Des Moines Register and Tribune asked another question about the Ellsberg case, and Nixon reiterated his claim of national security.<br />
<br />
Next, the subject of Nixon’s income tax returns came up. Nixon, according to the Providence Evening Bulletin, had paid only $792 in Federal income tax in 1970, and $878 in 1971. Nixon replied that he’d paid $79,000 in income tax in 1969, and the dramatic reduction in tax resulted from Nixon’s donation of his vice-presidential papers to the U.S. government, for which he’d taken a $500,000 deduction. (This practice was outlawed in 1969, so Nixon had gotten in just under the wire.)<br />
<br />
The Tennessee Oak Ridger threw in another softball, asking Nixon if the demands of the Presidency were such that he just hadn’t had time to manage the re-election campaign directly. Nixon replied that yes, he’d taken a hands-off approach, but added “I say if mistakes are made, however, I am not blaming the people down below. The man at the top has got to take the heat for all of them.”<br />
<br />
Before he took another question, however, Richard Nixon decided to go back to the question of his income tax payments. His government service had not been particularly lucrative, he said. “When I left office…you know what my net worth was? $47,000 total. Now, I have no complaints. In the next 8 years, I made a lot of money [from his book and law partnership]. And so, that is where the money came from.”<br />
<br />
Even though the focus of the questions was on Watergate, it was the suspicion of financial irregularities in his personal life that seemed to concern Nixon most of all. Whatever anyone believed of him, his personal finances, he wanted to make clear, were completely aboveboard. It was in defending those finances that Richard Nixon made one of the most famous quotes of his lifetime:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the television audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service--I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. <i>Well, I am not a crook</i>. I have earned everything I have got.” [Emphasis added.]</blockquote>
That seemed to stop the questions about Watergate. Reporters asked about the wiretapping of Richard Nixon’s brother Donald, additional matters of national security, the desirability of shield laws for reporters, executive privilege, the energy crisis, possible gas rationing, milk price supports, and what Nixon planned to do in retirement. (Hint: work for campaign finance reform.)<br />
<br />
The event, televised live, went a few moments over the scheduled time, but that was okay in Nixon’s book. “It is a lousy movie anyway tonight.”<br />
<br />
And when it was over, Richard Nixon said, “Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. I guess that is the end.”<br />
<br />
But the end was still nine months away.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-89288968968787191832012-11-13T12:41:00.000-05:002012-11-13T12:42:39.152-05:00Eyewitness to Murder, Part Two<br />
On April 13, 2010, I wrote a blog piece entitled <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyewitness-to-murder.html">“Eyewitness to Murder,” in which I recounted my involvement with a 1975 shooting spree in Wheaton, Maryland</a>. Seven people (all African-American) were shot; two of them died. The killer also died, shot by police. He was white.<br />
<br />
Although I drove within feet of the killer and his fourth victim, I completely misread the situation. It was so inconceivable to me that a killing spree was taking place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Wheaton that I failed to process anything going on around me. I couldn’t have picked out the killer from a police lineup even though I saw him clearly. There was just enough askew about the situation that I decided for safety’s sake to drop by the police station on my way home — and it was there I learned that I had been an eyewitness to murder.<br />
<br />
The incident itself quickly dropped off the front pages and has largely been lost to history. With the killer dead, there was no trial, and the number of victims was too small to register with the national media. The incident — and my failure — have stuck with me for many years, and armed with Google, I decided to find out what I could learn, and uploaded my blog piece on the 35th anniversary of the shootings.<br />
<br />
For the record, and because it can’t be stated often enough, the victims were:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>John L. Sligh, 43, of Rockville, Maryland: died.</li>
<li>Laureen D. Sligh, 40, his wife: wounded in both legs, survived.</li>
<li>Dr. Ralph C. Gomes, also of Rockville: minor injuries when his car crashed.</li>
<li>Harold S. Navy, Jr., 17, a freshman at the University of Maryland: wounded in the abdomen, but survived. Navy was the victim I saw.</li>
<li>Connie L. Stanley, 42, of Washington, DC: killed.</li>
<li>Rosalyn Stanley, 26, of Annapolis, Maryland: wounded.</li>
<li>Bryant Lamont Williams, 20, of Rockville: wounded.</li>
</ul>
<br />
The killer was Michael Edward Pearch, an unemployed carpenter living with his mother in Silver Spring, Maryland.<br />
<br />
Since I first published the piece, I’ve heard from several other people connected to the incident.<br />
<br />
About six months after “Eyewitness to Murder” appeared on my blog, I got an email from the daughter of John and Laureen Sligh. We exchanged emails and a few telephone calls, and finally arranged to have lunch on April 13, 2011, the 36th anniversary of the shooting. She told me her story. Her parents normally went to the movies on Sunday afternoon, and were just leaving the Wheaton Plaza theaters in separate cars when they encountered the shooter. The daughter herself was watching television when a special bulletin interrupted her show — and that’s how she learned her father was dead and her mother in the hospital. No one had bothered to sequester the news until the next of kin could be informed.<br />
<br />
Both John and Laureen Sligh were scientists working for the Department of Defense. John Sligh was also a businessman and had purchased several small businesses. After his death, Laureen Sligh moved back to her home in Mississippi, and the businesses were left to the care of a relative who unfortunately was unable to keep them going, leaving the daughter without much in the way of means. We’ve kept in touch, and I’ve been pleased to hear that her daughters in turn are doing well; the youngest has ambitions to go to medical school.<br />
<br />
I next heard from a man who was investigating the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon_sisters"> disappearance of the Lyon sisters</a>, an unsolved case of two young girls who vanished in Wheaton in 1975. Although there’s no known direct connection between Pearch and the disappearance of the Lyon girls, Pearch’s killing spree makes him an obvious potential suspect.<br />
<br />
An anonymous comment in June 2012 gave me some more information about Harold Navy, Jr. He wrote, “I'd just like to add a correction, if I may? I remember Harold Navy Jr, being shot in the upper leg and it affected his basketball playing as he had a long recouperation. I remember him returning to High School basketball after the shooting, so I don't think he was yet a freshman in college.”<br />
<br />
In August, I heard from another eyewitness, who wrote, “I was in early elementary school at the time of this horrific crime. My family was in the Wheaton Pharmacy (now long gone, but it was in the shopping center with Planters Peanuts,etc.on Georgia Ave.). My memories are vague, but I do remember hearing the gun fire, hiding in the small bathroom with the wife of the owner, my mother and my brother while my father and the pharmacist grabbed heavy objects, ducked behind the counter and waited (seems silly in hindsight, but it was all they could do). I had supressed my memories until the sniper shootings several years ago. I was surprised that this crime never re surfaced in the media. We also found out after the attacks that as a white family, we most likely were safe, but there was no way to know that at the time.”<br />
<br />
And finally, a little over a month ago, I heard from one more person — someone who had known the killer.<br />
<br />
“My connection to this event is before the fact. I had met Mike Pearch a couple of years before the shooting and spent a lot of time with him camping over three days. With only one exception, our paths did not cross again for about two years, until I happened to randomly wind up doing yard work at his mother's house about 24 hours before the shooting began. <br />
<br />
“Mike recognized me and came out of the house to talk. The conversation lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes and mostly covered the past two years. I know that there was much more behind his actions, but I have always been haunted by the question of whether something about that conversation may have been the final trigger for him to snap. I strongly suspect that the whole time he was speaking with me that he already had at least some idea about what he was going to do and perhaps he had already planned every detail. <br />
<br />
“Not that I think it would have made much of a difference but I was never interviewed by the police. I don't think they ever knew much of anything about me or that I had just spoken to Mike. I was only fifteen at the time and could not figure out what to do with what I knew. My parents were even afraid to talk to me about it beyond being the ones to inform me about the shooting.<br />
<br />
This whole episode is to me like a manila file folder that has no place in the file cabinet. I try to put it somewhere; maybe in the wrong drawer, maybe in the trash, maybe I try to bury it under other things but sooner or later it keeps reappearing on top of the file cabinet. I suspect you and others, connected to this event, feel the same way. And always the question, ‘Is there anything I could have done?’ <br />
<br />
Obviously, there is not a thing I can do to change the past but if there is any way that sharing what I know can bring some relief to someone else affected by this tragedy then perhaps I could finally put this in the file cabinet under, ‘Something good finally came out of that part of my life.’”<br />
<br />
For the story of how we met, and what I’ve learned since then, stay tuned.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-35451796571018692192012-11-02T10:38:00.001-04:002012-11-02T13:53:17.888-04:00Predictions are Hard (Especially About the Future)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjparTZZBkT7fDd60PDNmAhtSYVsE8_W4NVr9eKngQrXbmex2fcpkfK6a6IoX_QRiccQGI-clYiupuj_1Rst-2PRI6nPiXF02B4TJ3hA5cOL7IVH-17IxKfCcojmuy6aFo4vWtd4CQXIbNW/s1600/poll-image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjparTZZBkT7fDd60PDNmAhtSYVsE8_W4NVr9eKngQrXbmex2fcpkfK6a6IoX_QRiccQGI-clYiupuj_1Rst-2PRI6nPiXF02B4TJ3hA5cOL7IVH-17IxKfCcojmuy6aFo4vWtd4CQXIbNW/s200/poll-image.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
While famous malapropist Yogi Berra is most often cited for the quote, “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future,” it appears that the source was actually Danish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Niels Bohr. Bohr, whose pioneering work in quantum physics would naturally equip him with a keen sense of the limits of knowledge, also had a sense of humor. (He also said, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”)<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Bias and Accuracy</span></b><br />
<br />
In my long study of c<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Cognitive%20bias">ognitive biases on this blog</a> and in my compilation <a href="http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/RandomJottings06.pdf">Random Jottings 6: The Cognitive Biases Issue</a>, I was struck again and again by how many of the biases had to do with perceptions of probability. From ambiguity aversion to the base rate fallacy to the twin problems of the gambler’s fallacy and the ludic fallacy, we have repeatedly shown ourselves to be incapable of judging probabilities with any degree of precision or understanding. When people rate their own decisions as "95% certain," research shows they're wrong approximately 40% of the time.<br />
<br />
With the 2012 presidential election only four days away as I write this, the issue of prediction and forecasting is uppermost in the minds of every partisan and pundit. Who will win, and by how much? Checking the polls as I write, the RealClearPolitics average gives President Obama a 0.1% lead over Governor Romney (47.4% to 47.3%). Rasmussen has Romney up by 2 (49% to 47%), Gallup by 5 (51% to 46%), and NPR by 1 (48% to 47%). On the other hand, ABC/Wash Post and CBS/NY Times both have Obama leading by 1 (49% - 48% for ABC, 48% - 47% for CBS), and the National Journal has Obama up by 5 (50% - 45%). No matter what your politics, you can find polls to encourage you and polls to discourage you about the fate of your preferred candidate.<br />
<br />
Some polls normally come with qualifications. Rasmussen traditionally leans Republican; PPP often skews Democratic. That doesn't means either poll is irrelevant or useless. <i>Accuracy</i> and <i>bias</i> are two different things. <i>Bias</i> is the degree to which a poll or sample leans in a certain direction. If a study comparing Rasmussen or PPP polls to the actual election results shows that Rasmussen's results tend to be 2% more toward the Republican candidate (or vice versa for PPP), both polls are quite useful — you just have to adjust for the historical bias. If on the other hand a poll overestimates the Democratic vote by 10% in one election and then overestimates the Republican vote by 10% in another election, there's no consistent <i>bias,</i> but the poll's <i>accuracy </i>is quite low. In other words, a biased poll can be a lot more valuable than an inaccurate one.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Selection Bias</span></b><br />
<br />
Of course, political polls (or polls of any sort) are subject to all sorts of error. <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/selection%20bias">My cognitive biases entry on selection bias</a> summarizes common concerns. For instance, there’s a growing argument that land-line telephone polls, once the gold standard of scientific opinion surveys, are becoming less reliable. Cell phone users are more common and skew toward a different demographic. There's also a sense that people are over-polled. More and more people are refusing to participate, meaning that the actual sample becomes to some extent self-selected: a random sample of people who like to take polls. People who don’t like to take polls are underrepresented in the results, and there’s no guarantee that class feels the same as the class answering. (I myself usually hang up on pollsters, and I've often thought it might help our political process if we agreed to lie to pollsters at every opportunity.)<br />
<br />
Selection bias can happen in any scientific study requiring a statistical sample that is representative of some larger population: if the selection is flawed, and if other statistical analysis does not correct for the skew, the conclusions are not reliable.<br />
<br />
There are several types of selection bias:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Sampling bias.</b> Systemic error resulting from a non-random population sample. Examples include self-selection, pre-screening, and discounting test subjects that don’t finish.</li>
<li><b>Time interval bias</b>. Error resulting from a flawed selection of the time interval. Examples include starting on an unusually low year and ending on an unusually high one, terminating a trial early when its results support your desired conclusion or favoring larger or shorter intervals in measuring change.</li>
<li><b>Exposure bias.</b> Error resulting from amplifying trends. When one disease predisposes someone for a second disease, the treatment for the first disease can appear correlated with the appearance of the second disease. An effective but not perfect treatment given to people at high risk of getting a particular disease could potentially result in the appearance of the treatment causing the disease, since the high-risk population would naturally include a higher number of people who got the treatment <i>and</i> the disease.</li>
<li><b>Data bias.</b> Rejection of “bad” data on arbitrary grounds, ignoring or discounting outliers, partitioning data with knowledge of the partitions, then analyzing them with tests designed for blindly chosen ones.</li>
<li><b>Studies bias.</b> Earlier, we looked at <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/publication%20bias">publication bias</a>, the tendency to publish studies with positive results and ignore ones with negative results. If you put together a meta-analysis without correcting for publication bias, you’ve got a studies bias. Or you can perform repeated experiments and report only the favorable results, classifying the others as calibration tests or preliminary studies.</li>
<li><b>Attrition bias.</b> A selection bias resulting from people dropping out of a study over time. If you study the effectiveness of a weight loss program only by measuring outcomes for people who complete the whole program, it’ll often look very effective indeed — but it ignores the potentially vast number of people who tried and gave up.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Unskewing the Polls</span></b><br />
<br />
In general, you can’t overcome a selection biases with statistical analysis of existing data alone. Informal workarounds examine correlations between background variables and a treatment indicator, but what’s missing is the correlation between unobserved determinants of the outcome and unobserved determinants of selection into the sample that create the bias. What you don’t see doesn’t have to be identical to what you do see. That doesn't stop people from trying, however.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, the website <a href="http://www.unskewedpolls.com/">unskewedpolls.com,</a> developed by Dean Chambers, a Virginia Republican, attempts to correct what he sees as a systematic bias as to the proportion of Republicans and Democrats in the electorate. By adjusting poll results that in Chambers’ view are oversampling Democrats, he concludes (as of today) that Romney leads Obama nationally by 52% - 47%, a five point lead, and that Romney also leads in enough swing states that Chambers projects a Romney landslide in the electoral college of 359 to 179, with 270 needed for victory.<br />
<br />
Chambers argues that other pollsters and analysts who show an edge for Obama are living in a “fantasy world.” In particular, he trains his disgust on Nate Silver, who writes the blog <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">FiveThirtyEigh</a>t on the New York Times website, describing him as “… a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the ‘Mr. New Castrati’ voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.” (You may notice a little bit of <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/ad%20hominem">ad hominem</a> here. Clearly a short person with an effeminate voice can’t be trusted.)<br />
<br />
A quick review of the types of selection bias above will identify several problems with the unskewed poll method. Indeed, it's hard to find anyone not wedded to the extreme right who's willing to endorse Chambers' methodology. The approach is bad statistics, and would be equally bad if done on behalf of the Democratic candidate.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight</span></b><br />
<br />
Other views of Nate Silver are a bit more positive. Silver first came to prominence as a baseball analyst, developing the PECOTA system for forecasting performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, then won some $400,000 using his statistical insights to play online poker. Starting in 2007, he turned his analytical approach to the upcoming 2008 election, and predicted the winner of 49 out of 50 states. This resulted in his being named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, and his blog was picked up by the New York Times. (He's also got a new book out, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Predictions-Fail-but/dp/159420411X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351878639&sr=8-1&keywords=the+signal+and+the+noise">The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don't</a>. </i>I recommend it.)<br />
<br />
As of today, <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">Nate Silver’s predictions on FiveThirtyEight </a>differ dramatically from the UnSkewedPolls average. Silver predicts that Obama will take the national popular vote 50.5% to 48.4%, and the electoral college by 303 to 235. One big difference between Dean Chambers and Nate Silver is that Chambers is certain, and Silver is not. He currently gives Obama an 80.9% chance of winning, which means that Silver gives Romney a 19.1% chance of victory using the same data.<br />
<br />
This 80% - 20% split is known to statisticians as a <i>confidence interval</i>, a measure of the reliability of an estimate. In other words, Silver knows that the future is best described as a range of probabilities. Neither he, nor Chambers, nor you, nor I “know” the outcome of the election that will take place next Tuesday, and we will not “know” until the votes have been counted and certified (and any legal challenges resolved).<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Predictions vs. Knowledge</span></b><br />
<br />
In other words, when we <i>predict</i>, we do not <i>know</i>.<br />
<br />
Keeping the distinction straight is vital for anyone whose job includes the need to forecast what will happen. Lawyers don’t “know” the outcome of a case until the jury or judge renders a verdict and the appeals have all been resolved. Risk managers don’t “know” whether a given risk will occur until we’re past the point at which it could possibly happen. Actuaries don’t “know” how many car accidents will take place next year until next year is over and the accidents have been counted. But lawyers, risk managers, actuaries — and pollsters — all predict nonetheless.<br />
<br />
A statistical prediction, by its very nature, contains uncertainty and should therefore be expressed in terms of the degree of confidence that the forecaster has determined. “The sun’ll come out tomorrow,” sings Annie in the eponymous musical, and she’s almost certainly right. But that’s a prediction, not a fact. While the chance of the Sun going nova are vanishingly small, they aren’t exactly zero.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Confidence Level and Margin of Error</span></b><br />
<br />
Poll results usually report both a confidence level and a range of error, such as “95% confidence with an error of ±3%.” The error rate is the uncertainty of the measurement itself. If we flip a coin 100 times, the theoretical probability is 50 heads and 50 tails, but if it came out 53 heads and 47 tails (or vice versa), no one would be surprised. That’s equivalent to an error of ±3%. In other words, a small wobble in the final number should come as a shock to no one.<br />
<br />
The confidence level, on the other hand, is the degree of confidence you have that your final number will stay within the error range. The probability that an honest coin flipped 100 times would produce 70 heads and 30 tails is low, but it’s within the realm of possibility. In other words, the “95% confidence” measurement tells us that 95% of the time, the actual result should be within the margin of error — but that 5% of the time, it will fall outside the range. (There’s a bit of math that goes into measuring this, but it's outside the scope of this piece.)<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Winning at Monte Carlo</span></b><br />
<br />
Nate Silver’s 80% confidence number comes from using a modeling technique known as a Monte Carlo simulation, which is also used in project management as a modern and superior alternative to the old PERT calculation, a weighted average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely outcomes. In a Monte Carlo simulation, a computer model runs a problem over and over again in thousands of iterations, choosing random numbers from within the specified ranges, and then calculates the result. If the polls are right 95% of the time within a ±3% margin of error, the program chooses a random number within the error range 95% of the time, and 5% of the time chooses a number outside the range, representing the probability that the polls could be all wet. In running five or ten thousand simulations, the results gave the victory to Obama 80.9% of the time, and to Romney 19.1% of the time.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow, the answer may be different. Silver will enter new data, and the computer will run five or ten thousand more simulations. Each day, the probability of winning or losing will change slightly, until the final results are in and the answer is no longer a matter of probability but a matter of fact.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat</span></b><br />
<br />
Astute readers may notice the parallels here to Schrödinger's Cat, which is mathematically both alive and dead until the box is opened. Personally, I put a lot of credence into Silver’s analysis; his approach is in line with my understanding of statistics. That means I think Obama is very likely to win next Tuesday — but only within a range of probability.<br />
<br />
I will also note that Nate Silver seems to feel the same way. He's just been chided by the public editor of the New York <i>Times</i> for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/nate-silver-joe-scarborough-bet_n_2056401.html">making a $2,000 bet with "Morning Joe" Scarborough that Obama will win</a>. Given his estimate of an 80% - 20% chance of an Obama victory, that sounds like a pretty good bet to me.<br />
<br />
But we won't <i>know</i> until Tuesday night at the earliest. So be sure to vote.<br />
<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-65619618958935662342012-10-20T05:01:00.000-04:002012-10-20T05:10:38.191-04:00Saturday Night's Alright (for Firing) — Watergate, Part 9<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZJqOVCkxle60HV5zigtjUFakbVTLfM-Y39kiHFcQ6fSvqpd0Vu6q5qy6nHlXhFgWFAo0_pkdLGTHcul4B-GYD0iW2TJgt3a7C2ObyzKlr6H5qvf05iQYOtL_GCm3rzugN5Jehpntc0vb/s1600/ArchibaldCox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZJqOVCkxle60HV5zigtjUFakbVTLfM-Y39kiHFcQ6fSvqpd0Vu6q5qy6nHlXhFgWFAo0_pkdLGTHcul4B-GYD0iW2TJgt3a7C2ObyzKlr6H5qvf05iQYOtL_GCm3rzugN5Jehpntc0vb/s1600/ArchibaldCox.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watergate Special Prosecutor <br />
Archibald Cox</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Watergate">here</a>. This week, the Saturday Night Massacre, October 20, 1973.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/06/duct-tape-and-watergate-watergate-part.html">Watergate burglary</a> itself took place on June 20, 1972, but following Richard Nixon's overwhelming re-election in November of that year, it looked as if the worst of the scandal had been contained. As long as the burglary could be put down to overzealous underlings at the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, but often abbreviated CREEP) and kept away from the White House itself, all was in order.<br />
<br />
There were loose ends. One of the burglars had checks from E. Howard Hunt, a member of the White House "plumbers" who was connected to Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson, known as Nixon's hatchet man. As part of the cover up, White House Counsel John Dean went to acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray to keep the situation under control. As Dean later wrote, "[We] could count on Pat Gray to keep the Hunt material from becoming public, and he did not disappoint us."<br />
<br />
Gray went so far as to burn what were billed as "national security documents [that] should never see the light of day" from Hunt's personal safe at the request of Dean and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman. These documents weren't officially about Watergate, Gray later said. "The first set of papers in there were false top-secret cables indicating that the Kennedy administration had much to do with the assassination of the Vietnamese president (Diem). The second set of papers in there were letters purportedly written by Senator Kennedy involving some of his peccadilloes, if you will."<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Gray wasn't the only person who knew about the Hunt material. His deputy, FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt, who actually ran the FBI's day-to-day operations, was also "Deep Throat," the confidential informant providing Washington <i>Post</i> reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with information. As the material began to leak, Gray became shaky.<br />
<br />
In February 1973, Nixon nominated Gray to be permanent director of the FBI, handing the Senate its first opportunity to interrogate a high-ranking Administration official about Watergate. Gray went into full self-defense mode. He volunteered that he'd provided investigation files to John Dean, saying FBI lawyers had told him it was legal, confirmed the dirty tricks activities of CREEP — and worst of all, testified that Dean himself had "probably lied" to the FBI. Enraged by the betrayal, Ehrlichman told Dean that Gray should "twist slowly, slowly in the wind." (Ehrlichman was evidently a fan of Huxley's <i>Brave New World.)</i> Gray withdrew his nomination, and after he learned that Dean had rolled over, Gray resigned from the FBI altogether. Although he was later indicted, he was never convicted.<br />
<br />
In March 1973, Watergate burglar and CREEP security specialist James McCord wrote Watergate Judge John Sirica that his testimony was perjured under pressure. One month after that, seeing the handwriting on the wall, John Dean rolled over and began cooperating with Federal prosecutors. Desperate to distance himself from the scandal, Nixon responded by firing Ehrlichman, White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst. (Kleindienst had taken over from John Mitchell when Mitchell was tasked with leading the re-election effort. His involvement with the scandal was peripheral, and he ended up with a misdemeanor conviction for perjury and paid a $100 fine.)<br />
<br />
With the Justice Department compromised, Nixon had little choice but to allow the appointment of a nominally independent special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. After the revelation of the White House tapes and Nixon's refusal to release them, Cox pursued a subpoena to get the tapes for his investigation. When Cox refused a Nixon compromise that would give him transcripts but no access to the actual recordings, Nixon had had enough.<br />
<br />
On Saturday evening, October 20, 1973, Nixon called Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Kleindienst's successor, and ordered him to fire Cox. Richardson, citing his promise to the Congressional oversight committee not to interfere with the Special Prosecutor, refused. When Nixon continued to press him, he resigned. Nixon then called the Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, who had made the same pledge, and ordered <i>him</i> to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also resigned.<br />
<br />
The third in command of the Justice Department was Solicitor General Robert Bork (later a notorious failed Supreme Court nominee), who had not been part of the process and who had therefore not made the same pledge. Although Bork claimed to believe that Nixon had the right to fire Cox, he says he also considered resigning so he wouldn't be "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job." Elliot Richardson says he persuaded Bork not to resign, on the grounds that the Justice Department needed some continuity of leadership.<br />
<br />
Nixon had Bork brought to the White House by limousine, swore him in as Acting Attorney General, and had Bork write the letter on the spot firing Cox.<br />
<br />
This incident became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre," and it was a major tipping point in the scandal. Congress was infuriated, the public outraged. After the Massacre, a plurality of Americans for the first time supported impeachment: 44% for, 43% against, 13% undecided. Several resolutions of impeachment were introduced in the House. Nixon was forced to allow Bork to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. There was some concern Jaworski, as the President's approved choice, would limit the investigation to the burglary alone, but as it turned out, Jaworski also looked at the broader implications of the growing scandal.<br />
<br />
In November 1973, a Federal district judge ruled that Cox's firing was illegal under the regulation establishing the special prosecutors office, which required a finding of "extraordinary impropriety." However, the situation had moved far too quickly to allow Cox to resume his position. The battle of the tapes would continue well into the following year.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-11330282329872378842012-10-02T13:34:00.001-04:002012-10-02T13:41:50.864-04:00Fifty Thousand!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: left;">I was pleased to discover yesterday that my Sidewise Thinking blog has now hit the 50,000 pageview mark. Last month, there were over 4,300 views, or well over 150 per day.</span><br />
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My first post, "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2009/08/whats-sidewise-thinking.html">What's SideWise Thinking?</a>", appeared on April 11, 2009. It was an excerpt from the book I was currently working on, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Project-Management-Michael-Dobson/dp/0071739335"><i>Creative Project Management</i> </a>(with Ted Leemann). I've generally put a new post up every Tuesday (with a big gap between July and November 2010), with topics ranging from project and risk management to my two big series on cognitive biases and decision-making disorders.<br />
<br />
The most popular piece so far has been "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/03/youre-not-being-reasonable.html">You're Not Being Reasonable</a>," on the rules of reasonable arguing. First published on March 2, 2010, it's gotten over 3,400 page views, helped primarily by a plug from the blog "<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pz/link_youre_not_being_reasonable/">LessWrong</a>" and a StumbleUpon link.<br />
<br />
I don't quite understand why the second most popular post is the 23rd part of my Red Herrings series, "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/01/humes-guillotine-red-herrings-part-23.html">Hume's Guillotine</a>." First published January 24, 2012, it's gotten over 2,200 hits, but I can't find any specific factor driving traffic to that article and that one alone. Next comes "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/02/triage-for-project-managers-part-two.html">Triage for Project Managers (Part Two)</a>" (February 8, 2011, over 1,700 hits), and "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyewitness-to-murder.html">Eyewitness to Murder</a>" (April 13, 2010, with over 1,300). Red herrings strike again with "<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/12/cute-angle-fallaciesred-herrings-part.html">A Cute Angle (Part 19)</a>" (December 27, 2011, over 1,000 hits).<br />
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By comparison, my new blog, <a href="http://improbhistory.blogspot.com/">Dobson's Improbable History</a>, which has only a little more than a month under its belt, is already exceeding 100 hits per day, with over 3,200 pageviews last month — a much better start.<br />
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This is the 149th post I've made to the blog. I made 29 entries in 2009, 31 in 2010, 52 in 2011, and 43 so far this year.<br />
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Thanks very much for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy it.<br />
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<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-475901313778044032012-09-25T04:00:00.000-04:002012-09-25T04:00:02.671-04:00Goldfinger Takes Fort Knox! (Propositional Fallacies, Part 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7VQ4hBwxwhDzFg_vAL4QOfw5tQy8oxH2doe6ODpVJXkAtUD7OKwno-1kKP7T87kRGSsByQvpKlLmbV5648eUijsTiuXGudX_lA0NuRyPmhGZjHwIUFs7MPi0KrIzD7IsNANkYQfUc3Lm/s1600/Goldfinger1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7VQ4hBwxwhDzFg_vAL4QOfw5tQy8oxH2doe6ODpVJXkAtUD7OKwno-1kKP7T87kRGSsByQvpKlLmbV5648eUijsTiuXGudX_lA0NuRyPmhGZjHwIUFs7MPi0KrIzD7IsNANkYQfUc3Lm/s400/Goldfinger1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bond villain Auric Goldfinger</td></tr>
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In propositional calculus, we can describe certain arguments in mathematical terms. Some arguments are true <i>if</i> the component statements are true. The statement “It is raining here now, <i>and</i> it is raining where you are now as well” can be written as P⋀Q. It is true <i>if</i> both its component statements are true. On the other hand, “It is raining here now OR it is raining where you are now” (written as P⋁Q) is true as long as at least <i>one</i> of the statements is true.<br />
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<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/09/propositional-fallacies-part-1.html">Propositional fallacies</a> involve fallacies of mathematical reasoning. They are fallacious regardless of the truth value of the component statements. Last time, we discussed <i>affirming a disjunct,</i> the fallacy of turning an <i>inclusive </i>OR into an <i>exclusive </i>one. The two remaining propositional fallacies are known as <i>affirming the consequent</i> and <i>denying the antecedent.</i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Affirming the Consequent</span></b></div>
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If Auric Goldfinger owned Fort Knox, then he would be rich. Auric Goldfinger is rich. Therefore, Auric Goldfinger owns Fort Knox. Even if the first two statements are true, the conclusion is invalid because there are other ways to be rich besides owning Fort Knox.</div>
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Here's how to cast the argument in propositional calculus:</div>
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P→Q </div>
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Q </div>
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∴ P </div>
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(If P, then Q. Q is true. Therefore, P.)</div>
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This is different from the argument "if and only if." If Auric Goldfinger is rich <i>if and only if</i> he owns Fort Knox, then the statement "Auric Goldfinger is rich" makes "Auric Goldfinger owns Fort Knox" necessarily true. But that's the case only if the first statement is true — which it isn't. In propositional calculus, we'd write that:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
P⟷Q</div>
<div>
Q</div>
<div>
∴ P</div>
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Affirming the consequent is sometimes called <i>converse error.</i></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Denying the Antecedent</b></span></div>
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The opposite fallacy, denying the antecedent, is also known as <i>inverse error.</i></div>
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<div>
If Auric Goldfinger owned Fort Knox, then he would be rich. Auric Goldfinger does not own Fort Knox. Therefore, Auric Goldfinger is not rich. This is wrong for the same reason as the previous argument was wrong: there are other ways to be rich.</div>
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In propositional calculus, this takes the form:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div>
P→Q </div>
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¬P</div>
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∴ ¬Q</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
If P, then Q. P is false (not-P). Therefore, Q is false (not-Q). As in the previous case, the rules for <i>if and only if</i> are different from <i>if </i>alone.</div>
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-40873955294999321622012-09-17T17:15:00.001-04:002012-09-17T17:15:08.401-04:00The Seven Deadly Sins — and Where To Find ThemResearchers at Kansas State University decided to create a series of county-by-county maps of the United States showing the relative distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins (Envy, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, and Pride). For each sin, they identified a measurable criterion that could serve as a stand-in, and mapped the results showing the deviation from the norm expressed in terms of the standard deviation (σ). Measures from -1.65σ to + 1.65σ are normal; lower levels shade toward the blue and higher levels toward the red.<br />
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It's very easy to critique the criteria used for each sin, or to suggest alternative metrics, but I thought it was quite interesting nonetheless. You can learn more about the project and the researchers <a href="http://www.k-state.edu/artsci/alumni/CONNECTIONS/winter09.pdf">here</a>, starting on page 8 of the PDF.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Envy</b></span><br />
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Metric: Total thefts (robbery, burglary, larceny, grand theft auto) per capita.<br />
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<img alt="Maps of the Seven Deadly Sins" height="301" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/yapb_cache/envy.9a0f71of0xkwkkgg848wk0o4k.2xne1totli0w8s8k0o44cs0wc.th.png" title="Maps of the Seven Deadly Sins" width="400" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Gluttony</b></span><br />
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Metric: Number of fast food restaurants per capita.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1552" height="306" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/gluttony-545x418.png" title="gluttony" width="400" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Greed</b></span><br />
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Metric: Average income compared with the number of people living below the poverty line.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1553" height="308" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/greed-545x421.png" title="greed" width="400" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lust</b></span><br />
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Metric: Number of STD cases reported per capita.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1554" height="306" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/lust-545x418.png" title="lust" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sloth</b></span><br />
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Metric: Expenditures on art, entertainment, and recreation compared with employment.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1556" height="303" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/sloth-545x413.png" title="sloth" width="400" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Wrath</b></span><br />
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Metric: Number of violent crimes (murder, assault, rape) per capita.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1557" height="308" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/wrath-545x420.png" title="wrath" width="400" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Pride</b></span><br />
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Metric: Aggregate of the other six offenses — because pride, as they say, is the root of all sin.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1555" height="308" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pride-545x421.png" title="pride" width="400" /><br />
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<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-72512017647667007642012-09-11T07:26:00.000-04:002012-09-24T10:19:53.364-04:00Propositional Fallacies, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There’s a branch of math known as <i>propositional calculus</i> that treats arguments like mathematical propositions. Using propositional calculus, you can demonstrate the truth or falsity of certain arguments.<br />
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Take the statement “It is raining here now.” Depending on when you make the statement, it can be either true or false. In propositional calculus, you’d represent the statement as “P,” and the opposite, “It is not raining here now” as “¬P.” If P is true, then ¬P has to be false; if ¬P is true, then P has to be false.<br />
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You can link together statements with connectors. Common connectors are AND, OR NOT, ONLY IF, and<i> </i>IF AND ONLY IF. If we say “It is raining here now, <i>and</i> it is raining where you are now as well,” we can label the second statement as Q. Represent AND with the symbol ⋀, and we can write “It is raining here now, <i>and</i> it is raining where you are now as well” as P⋀Q.<br />
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Of course, maybe it is raining here or it isn’t; maybe it’s raining at your house and maybe it isn’t. Because the individual statements can be true or false, we can prepare a <i>truth table</i>.<br />
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<u>P Q P⋀Q</u><br />
True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> True<br />
True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> False False<br />
False True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> False<br />
False False<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> False<br />
<br />
With <i>and</i> as a connector, the proposition P⋀Q is only true if <i>both</i> statements are true.<br />
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The connector OR (represented as “⋁”), on the other hand, makes the proposition true as long as <i>at least one</i> of the statements are true. “It is raining here now OR it is raining where you are now” results in the following truth table.<br />
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<u>P Q P⋁Q</u><br />
True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> True True<br />
True<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> False True<br />
False True True<br />
False False False<br />
<br />
Notice that OR is used here <i>inclusively</i> rather than <i>exclusively</i>. That is, P doesn’t exclude Q from being true. If it’s raining at my house, that doesn’t mean it’s not raining at yours.<br />
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Given the idea of propositional logic, it's easy to conclude that there are fallacies to go with it. The first of these is known as <i>affirming a disjunct.</i><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Affirming a Disjunct</span></b><br />
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Also known as the fallacy of the alternative disjunct, or the false exclusionary disjunct, this particular fallacy occurs when you change an<i> inclusive</i> OR into an <i>exclusive</i> one. “It is raining here now <i>or</i> it is raining where you are now” gets interpreted as “If it is raining here now, then it isn’t raining where you are now.”<br />
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In our symbolic structure, that gets represented as the following argument (with “therefore” represented by ∴).<br />
<br />
P⋁Q<br />
P<br />
∴¬Q<br />
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That’s a fallacy because it could be raining both places. One doesn’t preclude the other.<br />
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While OR in logic always means an inclusive “or,” that doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes want to be more concrete. The logical operator XOR is an exclusive or. When you use it, you’re saying “one or the other, but not both.” The symbol for that is ⊻.<br />
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<i>More next week.</i><br />
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-58673357519096452252012-09-04T09:17:00.000-04:002012-09-04T09:17:08.897-04:00Who Was That Masked Man? (Formal Fallacies Part 3)<br />
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Formal fallacies are arguments that are always wrong, regardless whether the argument's premises (statements claimed as fact) are true or false. For example, in the appeal to probability, someone makes a claim that because something could happen, therefore it will happen. That’s false even if it's true that the something in question could indeed happen.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Masked Man Fallacy</span></b><br />
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I know who Bruce Wayne is.<br />
<br />
I do not know who Batman is.<br />
<br />
Therefore, Bruce Wayne is not Batman.<br />
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In the masked man fallacy, a substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one. The statement "I do not know who Batman is" gets treated as if it excludes Bruce Wayne simply because I do know who <i>he</i> is. Of course, as long as I don’t know that Bruce is actually Batman, both statements can be absolutely true, and yet the conclusion does not follow logically.<br />
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The general form of the argument is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
X is known.<br />
Y is unknown.<br />
Therefore, X is not Y.</blockquote>
A similar argument, however, is valid.<br />
<br />
Clark Kent is Superman (X is Z).<br />
<br />
Batman is not Superman (Y is not Z).<br />
<br />
Therefore, Clark Kent is not Batman (therefore, X is not Y).<br />
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That’s because being something is different from knowing something. Lack of proof of one proposition doesn’t serve as proof of the counter proposition.<br />
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-3907217229447472092012-08-28T11:00:00.000-04:002012-08-28T11:00:00.681-04:00Fallacy Fallacy (Formal Fallacies Part 2)<br />
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Formal fallacies are arguments that are always wrong, regardless whether the argument's premises (statements claimed as fact) are true or false. In the previous installment, the appeal to probability, a claim that because something <i>could</i> happen, therefore it <i>will</i> happen is false even if it's true that the something in question could indeed happen.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Argument from Fallacy</b></span><br />
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If an argument contains a fallacy, what does that say about the conclusion? Actually, it doesn’t say very much. Excessively pointing to fallacies can itself trigger a fallacy of its own: the argument from fallacy, or the fallacy fallacy.<br />
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The argument from fallacy is the error of concluding that if an argument can be shown to be fallacious, that means its conclusion necessarily must be false. The form of the argument is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If P, then Q<br />
P is a fallacious argument.<br />
Therefore, Q is false.</blockquote>
Take, for example, the following claim: “I speak English, therefore I am an American citizen.” That’s a fallacious argument, because many people who speak English are not American citizens. To conclude, however, that because the argument is fallacious, you must <i>not</i> be an American citizen, is taking the claim a step too far. A conclusion can be right even if the argument supporting it happens to be wrong.<br />
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If you can show that a particular argument is fallacious, the only thing that means is that the particular argument can’t be used to prove the proposition. The opposite argument, that the fallacious argument itself disproves the proposition, is also a fallacy.<br />
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The argument from fallacy is also known as the argument to logic (argumentum ad logicam) and the fallacist’s fallacy. It’s part of a group of fallacies known as fallacies of relevance.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Base Rate Fallacy</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Conjunction Fallacy</span></b><br />
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The <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2009/11/looking-for-pony-cognitive-biases-part.html">base rate fallacy</a> and the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2009/12/patterns-probability-and-plagiarism.html">conjunction fallacy</a> also fall into the category of cognitive bias, and were both treated earlier in this blog and in my <a href="http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/RandomJottings06.pdf">compilation of cognitive biases</a>, published separately.<br />
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-18063554529166670622012-08-21T10:55:00.001-04:002012-08-21T10:55:09.482-04:00How to Accomplish an Impossible Project<br />
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In my upcoming book <i>Project: Impossible</i>, part of Multi-Media's <a href="http://www.mmpubs.com/catalog/lessons-from-history-c-4.html">Lessons from History</a> series, I lay out a methodology for dealing with a project that appears to be operationally impossible (that is, it can’t be accomplished within the initial boundaries of time, cost, and performance). <br />
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<br />
Other questions matter, too:<br />
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<br />
<ol>
<li>What are the consequences of failure to meet the original requirements?</li>
<li>Are there unacceptable negative consequences if we succeed?</li>
<li>Could trying make things worse?</li>
<li>How much risk should we be willing to take in achieving our goals?</li>
<li>What are all the things that have to happen to allow us to call it success?</li>
<li>How can we prepare our organization or team to be ready when the impossible project appears?</li>
</ol>
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<br />
Except for number 6, the other questions can’t effectively be asked until you have the project (or hot potato as the case may be). And as we’ve seen time and time again on our <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Project%3A%20Impossible">historical journey</a>, it’s what you do beforehand that often spells the difference between success and failure.<br />
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To do the impossible, it helps to be prepared. Preparation starts long before the impossible project swims into your field of view. Whether you and your organization will be able to rise to the challenge often depends on the strength and quality of your preparation.<br />
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In the television (and movie) series <i>Mission: Impossible</i>, the Impossible Missions Force (IMF, not to be confused with the International Monetary Fund) takes on challenges far beyond the capability of lesser organizations. How does it do that? First, it selects highly skilled people and provides training in the specifics of espionage. Second, it promotes a high degree of morale and esprit de corps. Members of the IMF see themselves as the best of the best.<br />
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Third, and possibly most important, the IMF enjoys a high degree of political support and cover for its operations — at least in the television series. In the case of the movies, it’s more often the case that the problem lies in their own management, and as a result, the movie plots normally involve the IMF team acting without the support of its covering organization. This makes the situation far more perilous, and if it weren’t for the magic of the motion picture experience, those projects more likely would turn out to be actually impossible.<br />
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Sometimes a project is impossible for a good reason. In other cases, the project isn’t what it seems. Practice looking at the situation through someone else’s eyes. Play the “what if” game. Look around you. Question the constraints.<br />
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And always accept that you don’t know everything.<br />
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Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-18502264631143676492012-08-16T09:42:00.001-04:002012-08-16T09:50:57.187-04:00The Father of Science Fiction (Science Fiction Birthdays)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Hugo Gernsback</b><br />
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Hugo Gernsback (August 16, 1884 - August 19, 1967) was born in Luxembourg and emigrated to the United States in 1905. A television and radio pioneer, Gernsback founded radio station WRNY, participated in the first television broadcasts, and helped facilitate the development of amateur radio.<br />
<br />
It was in the field of magazine publishing, however, that Gernsback would make his mark. His magazine <i>The Electrical Experimenter</i>, founded in 1913, primarily published nonfiction, but he also started publishing "scientific fiction" stories along with science journalism.<br />
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The reaction to these stories led Gernsback to found the first magazine dedicated to what he termed "scientifiction" (abbreviated "stf;" the term only survives as a joke among the science fiction cognoscenti): <i>Amazing Stories,</i> which began publication in 1926 and lasted (so far) until March 2005. (As a side note, I've been peripherally involved with <i>Amazing</i> twice, first because my good friend Ted White edited the magazine in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and again when my old employer TSR acquired the magazine in 1983.)<br />
<br />
<i>Amazing</i>'s letter column, which published the addresses of correspondents, triggered the beginning of organized <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_fandom">science fiction fandom</a>. Letter writers began to contact one another, form clubs, organize conventions, and start amateur magazines (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_fanzines">fanzines</a>) of their own. Although early fanzines tended to imitate their professional counterparts, fanzines quickly outgrew their "fan" origins to become an art form in themselves. (My own <i><a href="http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/index.htm">Random Jottings</a></i> is a small part of that tradition.)<br />
<br />
Gernsback himself was a controversial figure, accused of shady business practices and poor treatment of authors. (H. P. Lovecraft called him "Hugo the Rat.") He lost ownership of his magazines, including <i>Amazing,</i> in 1929, and founded two new magazines, <i>Science Wonder Stories</i> and <i>Air Wonder Stories,</i> which quickly merged into a single <i>Wonder Stories</i>, which he sold in 1936, returning once again in 1952 with <i>Science-Fiction Plus</i>, which lasted only a year. As an author, Gernsback is best known for the virtually unreadable (but seminal) novel <i>Ralph 124C41+</i> ("One to foresee for one").<br />
<br />
In spite of this, Hugo Gernsback is still credited for creating science fiction as a separate genre. To recognize this, the Science Fiction Achievement Awards, voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society (aka the membership of the current <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Science_Fiction_Society">Worldcon</a>), are named the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award">Hugo Awards</a>. Gernsback himself received a special Hugo in 1960 as "the father of magazine science fiction."<br />
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<b>Otto Messmer</b><br />
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Otto Messmer (August 16, 1892 - October 28, 1983) was an American animator best known for his work on <i>Felix the Cat.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
During his lifetime, the creative credit for <i>Felix</i> belonged to Pat Sullivan, whose studio produced the cartoons. After his death, Messmer claimed to have created the character. Sullivan Studio veterans and most comics historians support Messmer's claim.<br />
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<b>Other SF Related Birthdays</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxbAtNRojv8no61385ohEWaXf1X93Yg4Gg5oSUlhtCBr06bEtfuFGgwGHsaEvpJWGp1DO9ihiwZ8xWmGmux-ZhFCz6TgLf_qFAKK_CIZx1XPV0f_C8Dy9sirJPiUSPwPkAC2Ph8__ye5bE/s1600/Newmar,+Julie_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxbAtNRojv8no61385ohEWaXf1X93Yg4Gg5oSUlhtCBr06bEtfuFGgwGHsaEvpJWGp1DO9ihiwZ8xWmGmux-ZhFCz6TgLf_qFAKK_CIZx1XPV0f_C8Dy9sirJPiUSPwPkAC2Ph8__ye5bE/s200/Newmar,+Julie_01.jpg" width="161" /></a></div>
August 16 is also the birthday of Regency novelist <b>Georgette Heye</b>r. Her books became popular among science fiction fans in the 1970s, to the extent that Regency-themed events were frequently held during science fiction conventions.<br />
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<b>Julie Newmar</b> is best known in science fiction and comics circles for her portrayal of Catwoman in the 1960s <i>Batman</i> television series. Her major science fiction credit, however, is her portrayal of Rhoda the Robot in the CBS sitcom <i>My Living Doll</i>, which ran for a single season in 1964-5. Bob Cummings played a psychologist responsible for teaching Android AF 709 how to be a "perfect" woman.<br />
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Director <b>James Cameron</b> produced numerous genre films, including the first two <i>Terminator</i> movies and most recently <i>Avatar.</i><br />
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<b>Other Significant Birthdays</b><br />
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August 16 is also the birthday of coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, Lawrence of Arabia, Menachem Begin, poet Charles Bukowski, Davy Crockett player Fess Parker, Eydie Gormé, Robert (<i>I Spy</i>) Culp, and Madonna.Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-8050054928805259172012-08-14T09:00:00.000-04:002012-08-14T09:00:08.925-04:00The Drake Equation (Formal Fallacies, Part 1)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6JrDzxiz7BFty4iWY8bVmhTFqjbj7RPg9vfgnLASfoaYnU7oB-VcmM8vFNElG-5eNEKX6gxbVal6LjIdnzB36zZjH1cUYTHjHMHSSgVF5nSpsbYG1zyWeyUsf8kJYa3ujaeIYIVLFRTsS/s1600/frank-drake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6JrDzxiz7BFty4iWY8bVmhTFqjbj7RPg9vfgnLASfoaYnU7oB-VcmM8vFNElG-5eNEKX6gxbVal6LjIdnzB36zZjH1cUYTHjHMHSSgVF5nSpsbYG1zyWeyUsf8kJYa3ujaeIYIVLFRTsS/s1600/frank-drake.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frank Drake</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In February, I completed a 25-part series on <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/red%20herrings">red herrings</a>, a category of argumentative fallacies that are intended to distract from the argument, rather than address it directly. That's only one category of argumentative fallacy. In this series, we'll look at <i>formal fallacies</i>. Formal fallacies are errors in basic logic. You don't even need to understand the argument to know that it is fallacious. Let's start with the <i>appeal to probability.</i></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Appeal to Probability</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If I play the lottery long enough, I'm bound to win, and I can live on the prize comfortably for the rest of my life! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yes, it's possible that if you play the lottery, you'll win. </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Somebody</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> has to. The logical fallacy here is to confuse the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">possibility</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of winning with the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">inevitability </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">of winning. Of course, that doesn't follow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In our study of <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/01/index-of-cognitive-biases.html">cognitive bias</a> (also available in compiled form <a href="http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/RandomJottings06.pdf">here</a>), we learned that numerous biases result from the misapplication or misunderstanding of probability in a given situation. Examples include the base rate effect, the gambler's fallacy, the hindsight bias, the ludic fallacy, and overall neglect of probability. Use the tag cloud to the right to learn more about each. We are, as a species, generally bad at estimating probability, especially when it affects us personally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Various arguments about the <i>Drake equation</i> can fall into this trap. The Drake equation, developed by astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1961, provides a set of guidelines for estimating the number of potential alien civilizations that might exist in the Milky Way galaxy. Here's the formula:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="N = R^{\ast} \cdot f_p \cdot n_e \cdot f_{\ell} \cdot f_i \cdot f_c \cdot L" class="tex" height="35" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/9/2/d/92df3d5260eaca523ca8bcfd474d3aaa.png" style="background-color: white; border: none; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: middle;" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">in which:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;<br />R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy<br />fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets<br />ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets<br />fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point<br />fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life<br />fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space<br />L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are various arguments about the Drake equation. Some argue for additional terms in the equation, others point out that the value of many of the equation's terms are fundamentally unknown. There's a reasonable argument to be made that "N" has to be a fairly low number, on the simple grounds that we have not yet detected any extraterrestrial civilizations. Depending on the assumed values of the terms in the equation, you can derive conclusions that range from the idea that we're alone in the galaxy (see the Fermi Paradox) to an estimate that there may be as many as 182 million alien civilizations awaiting our discovery (or their discovery of us).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From a fallacies basis, however, the problem comes when people argue that the vast number of stars makes it <i>certain</i> that alien civilizations exist. As much as I'd personally prefer to believe this, the logic here is fallacious. Probable — even highly probable — doesn't translate to certainty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That's not an argument against the Drake equation <i>per se,</i> but merely a problem with an extreme conclusion drawn from it. The Drake equation was never intended to be science, but rather a way to stimulate dialogue on the question of alien civilizations.</span>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-72239762147089312122012-08-14T06:23:00.001-04:002012-08-14T06:23:33.364-04:00Science Fiction Birthdays<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiDYhwmDnbdbIvFB5tKV-Q4JUGi0pieC6a6UHqViCte6AuqIt3a4OhthNT0q-_PtYZd9AIShOytylQBG924eb__pnEGg9cfHId7bSfS_ovoIZm5Nddfngr5zijQ3f2AZZ7Sp9SjNBAeTfS/s1600/asterix-obelix.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiDYhwmDnbdbIvFB5tKV-Q4JUGi0pieC6a6UHqViCte6AuqIt3a4OhthNT0q-_PtYZd9AIShOytylQBG924eb__pnEGg9cfHId7bSfS_ovoIZm5Nddfngr5zijQ3f2AZZ7Sp9SjNBAeTfS/s320/asterix-obelix.gif" width="283" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asterix and Obelix</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>René Goscinny</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today is the birthday of René Goscinny (August 14, 1926 - November 5, 1977), author of the comic book series <i>Astérix</i>, following a village of indomitable Gauls as they resist Roman occupation. Goscinny was born in Paris but grew up in Buenos Aires. After the death of his father, he and his mother moved live with his uncle to New York. To avoid US military service, Goscinny returned to France and joined the French army in 1946, becoming an army illustrator. His first illustrated book, Returning to the US, he became friends with future <i>MAD</i> staffers Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Harvey Kurzman, and became art director for Kunen Publishers, writing children's books on the side.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He met the cartoonist Morris during this period, and starting in 1955, began a collaboration as writer of the series <i>Lucky Luke</i>, which he would continue until his death. Returning once again to Paris in 1951, he met his future </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Astérix </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">partner Albert Uderzo and co-founded the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Edipress/Edifrance syndicate. He worked on numerous projects, including <i>Signor Spaghetti</i> with Dino Attanasio, <i>Monsieur Tric</i> with Bob de Moor, and <i>Prudence Petitpas </i>with Maurice Maréchal. His first collaboration with Uderzo, <i>Oumpah-pah, </i>ran from 1958 to 1962.</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Astérix</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> first appeared in 1959, and 34 volumes have appeared since, with total sales in excess of 325 million copies. One of the most popular and beloved Franco-Belgian comics in the world, it has been translated into over 100 languages, adapted into 14 films, turned into numerous games, and even a theme park, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Parc Astérix, near Paris. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lee Hoffman</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QmkeMKCuKb8DWrnu3R-nlbJUbDsy2ewUwCRxXtZdeUKk6Wy_FmxsyRi_bR1igS7xOjwYeaRsuK4IOS8aL5VbsMvxLH3YszKGWJP24r3fADYyRkfjXmqGxxVEp6hHcvNzlaI24DqsiaYS/s1600/SF5Y76.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QmkeMKCuKb8DWrnu3R-nlbJUbDsy2ewUwCRxXtZdeUKk6Wy_FmxsyRi_bR1igS7xOjwYeaRsuK4IOS8aL5VbsMvxLH3YszKGWJP24r3fADYyRkfjXmqGxxVEp6hHcvNzlaI24DqsiaYS/s320/SF5Y76.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SFFY cover by Steve Stiles</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lee Hoffman (August 14, 1932 - February 6, 2007), is perhaps best known as an author of Westerns, wining the Spur Award for her 1967 novel <i>The Valdez Horses,</i> which became a movie starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland. But she is also a beloved figure in science fiction circles, from her early days as a fanzine editor (<i>Quandry</i>, which ran from 1950 to 1953), where she was initially thought to be male — an understandable mistake given the overwhelming ratio of males to females in the science fiction community of the time. (Legendary Irish fan Walt Willis, upon learning the truth, immediately called Bob Shaw and shouted, "Lee Hoffman is a <i>girl!</i>")</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She was married briefly to science fiction editor Larry Shaw, becoming assistant editor of his magazines <i>Infinity Science Fiction</i> and <i>Science Fiction Adventures </i>while also publishing her folk music fanzines <i>Caravan</i> and <i>Gardyloo.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition to her seventeen Western novels, she wrote four science fiction novels: <i>Telepower</i> (1967), <i>The Caves of Kars</i>t (1969), <i>Always the Black Knight</i> (1970) and <i>Change Song</i> (1972), and numerous short stories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Brannon Braga</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhFH0dm-51NzmMaVZ1AWYsDleo7audcL7gTFtt121s1wWdmbTnbqJxdi4EG4dDp0HI6WaWiRuhWzFgKD-X2lBY5qNaShJwibuisrb_bCzHhWLOPdIKwY8EcGLQ9RB2T081D75Uu5JKOYd/s1600/23_StarTrek_Enterprise_NX01starship_wallpaper_s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhFH0dm-51NzmMaVZ1AWYsDleo7audcL7gTFtt121s1wWdmbTnbqJxdi4EG4dDp0HI6WaWiRuhWzFgKD-X2lBY5qNaShJwibuisrb_bCzHhWLOPdIKwY8EcGLQ9RB2T081D75Uu5JKOYd/s200/23_StarTrek_Enterprise_NX01starship_wallpaper_s.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Star Trek:Enterprise</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Television producer and screenwriter Brannon Braga co-created <i>Star Trek: Enterprise</i> and worked on numerous other properties in the <i>Star Trek</i> franchise. His other science fiction work includes <i>Terra Nova</i>, <i>Threshold,</i> and <i>FlashForward. </i>He also worked on the series <i>24</i> in its later seasons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Miscellaneous Birthdays</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's also the birthday of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Doc Holliday, Lina Wertmüller, David Crosby, Steve Martin, Danielle Steel, Gary Larson, Halle Berry, Magic Johnson, and Tim Tebow.</span>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-60582743505347699132012-08-07T09:54:00.003-04:002012-08-07T10:05:50.081-04:00Nixon Resigns (Watergate Part 8)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAulTfr95PifsxN1q-hQXdUcq_B9_x-view5psUY0Gf0lAm4VKTG9a_APANZ5IuZuRiNTNCtTvPRuGI4st-4hEP2cHXROZefEwbHpppO6JXYrmQ3GhSOQ4Sp4iCeHRtEeOX0Kwf3nSDBq/s1600/Nixon-depart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAulTfr95PifsxN1q-hQXdUcq_B9_x-view5psUY0Gf0lAm4VKTG9a_APANZ5IuZuRiNTNCtTvPRuGI4st-4hEP2cHXROZefEwbHpppO6JXYrmQ3GhSOQ4Sp4iCeHRtEeOX0Kwf3nSDBq/s400/Nixon-depart.png" width="385" /></a></div>
“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.”<br />
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— Richard M. Nixon, November 17, 1973<br />
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<i>For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Watergate">here</a>. This week, Richard Nixon resigns the Presidency.</i><br />
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In our last thrilling installment, former Presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the heretofore secret White House taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee and to the world. In many ways, this revelation was the tipping point that inexorably led to the first — and so far only — resignation of a United States President.<br />
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Up until the tape revelation, much of the Watergate scandal had devolved into a “he said, she said” argument. There was no question that operatives associated with the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP to its supporters, CREEP to its enemies) had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex, but it was less clear how high up the scandal might reach. After all, the idea that low-level staff members might take it into their own heads to do something the boss would not approve is hardly unprecedented.<br />
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The initial connection between the Watergate burglary and the Nixon campaign was James McCord, a former CIA operative who worked as a security coordinator for CRP. From there, it was a fairly short jump to reach McCord’s bosses. E. Howard Hunt, another former CIA agent, was also a modestly successful writer of spy thrillers. G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, had also been a prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York, where he famously busted 60s icon Timothy Leary. Both men were leaders of the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2011/09/huntliddy-special-project-1-watergate.html">White House Plumbers Unit</a>.<br />
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Initially, a lot of people believed that the “two-bit burglary” itself was simply a rogue staff operation, and that the cover-up was primarily designed to protect the Plumbers operation. Although parts of the story remain murky to this day, it now appears that the burglary itself originated at high levels of the Administration, and may have been ordered by Nixon himself, concerned about potential negative information possessed by DNC chairman Larry O’Brien.<br />
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Slowly, the chain of Watergate responsibility crept up the ladder, moving from CRP to the White House itself, but the “smoking gun” that would implicate the President personally remained elusive. Senate Watergate Committee chairman Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina pushed the essential question: “What did the President know and when did he know it?”<br />
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Although former White House counsel John Dean’s explosive testimony had in fact implicated Nixon, it was still a matter of his word against that of the President of the United States. The revelation of the White House taping system changed all that. The tapes themselves were capable of revealing once and for all what the President knew and when he knew it.<br />
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<a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/07/tape-worm-watergate-part-6.html">As revealed in our last installment</a>, Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House tapes in a preliminary interview on Friday, July 13, 1973. The following Monday, June 16, he testified before the live, televised Senate Watergate Committee hearings and the tapes became public knowledge. Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox immediately asked District Court Judge “Maximum” John Sirica to subpoena eight relevant tapes that would confirm or contradict John Dean’s testimony.<br />
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Nixon, as noted, argued against the subpoena for two reasons. The first was executive privilege, a claim based on the separation of powers and checks and balances enshrined in the U. S. Constitution. The second was a claim that the privacy of the tapes was vital to national security. Nixon offered a compromise in which Mississippi Senator John Stennis would listen to the tapes and summarize them. When Cox refused, Nixon ordered what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre on October 19, 1973, and appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, on November 1, 1973.<br />
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The battle of the tapes continued to rage. In April 1974, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the tapes for 42 additional White House conversations. Nixon released edited transcriptions, still citing executive privilege and national security. Jaworsky, about the same time, subpoenaed 64 tapes to support his criminal prosecutions of various Nixon administration officials. In late July 1974, the Supreme Court weighed in with an 8-0 decision in United States v. Nixon: the subpoena was valid. Nixon had to release the tapes.<br />
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In his column “On Language,” William Safire described Watergate as the Golden Age of Political Coinage. He wrote, “The Watergate era coined or popularized Saturday night massacre, stonewalling, cover-up, dirty tricks, straight arrow, expletive deleted, third-rate burglary, plumbers, Deep Throat, Big Enchilada, enemies list and twisting slowly in the wind.”<br />
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The term “smoking gun,” according to Safire, apparently first appears in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Gloria Scott,” but it gained its current meaning in the Watergate scandal. Roger Wilkins in the New York Times first used the term. “The big question asked over the last few weeks in and around the House Judiciary Committee's hearing room by committee members who were uncertain about how they felt about impeachment was ‘Where's the smoking gun?’”<br />
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On August 5, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee released what instantly became known as the “smoking gun tape.” It was a recording of a meeting that had taken place on June 23, 1972, six days after the original burglary, in which H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, asked Nixon if he should ask Richard Helms, CIA director, to approach FBI chief L. Patrick Gray about halting his investigation on national security grounds. This, the special prosecutor and the Judiciary Committee agreed, constituted a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.<br />
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Here’s the relevant text:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
HALDEMAN: …the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have… their investigation is now leading into some productive areas […] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go. […] [T]he way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, ‘Stay the hell out of this …this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.’” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
NIXON: All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest. […] You call [the CIA] in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it.”</blockquote>
Until that point, the ten Republican members on the House Judiciary Committee had voted against impeachment, but now they unanimously agreed that they would support an impeachment vote once the case reached the House floor.<br />
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In the American system, the impeachment of a President requires a simple majority vote of the House of Representatives, but removal from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. In essence, this means that any removal of a President from office requires a substantial number of votes from the President’s own party. Impeachment can be a purely partisan act (see Clinton, Bill), but removal from office must necessarily be bipartisan.<br />
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It was therefore a delegation of Republican senators who informed President Nixon that there were only about 14 votes to keep him in office, far short of the 34 votes he needed. With the handwriting on the wall, Nixon took the only path available. In a nationally televised Oval Office address on the evening of August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned, saying:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future…. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.</blockquote>
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The next morning, the President and his wife said goodbye to the White House staff and boarded a helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One waited to fly them to his California home in San Clemente. He wrote later of his thoughts. “As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?”<br />
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President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon on September 8, 1974, saying, “[Watergate] is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”<br />
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Nixon continued to proclaim his innocence until his death on April 22, 1994.<br />
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<br /></div>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-16105629757457601442012-07-31T10:39:00.002-04:002012-08-07T09:56:57.975-04:00True Grit<br />
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<br />
It was also at Corflu in a conversation about comic books when Dan Steffan mentioned he’d always been curious about GRIT, America’s Greatest Family Newspaper, advertised in most comics from the 1940s to the 1970s. “Boys!” screamed the headline. “Sell GRIT! Make money! Win prizes!”<br />
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“I used to sell GRIT,” I said.<br />
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People who know me as fairly introverted are somewhat surprised to learn about my background in sales. I not only sold GRIT, before Christmas I also sold greeting cards for the Cheerful Card Company, another comic book advertiser. For several years, GRIT and Cheerful Cards were the sole source of my spending money. GRIT sold for 20¢, and I kept 7¢. I could even strip the unsold copies and return them in lieu of payment.<br />
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My first experience in sales came from my brief days as a Boy Scout (I made it all the way to Second Class before I got kicked out for missing too many meetings — they conflicted with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Monday nights). There was an annual Scout Jamboree, and tickets were 50¢. If you sold 50, you got a free tent, and I sold about 65 or so. Some of the buyers gave me the money but declined to take a ticket, so I made a few extra bucks on the side as well.<br />
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I worked the concessions for a Shriner-sponsored event featuring the Flying Wallendas, a big act for small-town Decatur, Alabama, and moved a lot of merchandise. Somewhere I have an autograph of one of the Wallendas. So I was primed to Make Money and Win Prizes when GRIT came along.<br />
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GRIT was a weekly newspaper founded in 1882. Originally, it was just the Saturday edition of the Williamsport (PA) Daily Sun and Banner, but it was purchased in 1885 by a German immigrant named Dietrick Lamade, who built it up to a circulation of 20,000 within a few years. By the mid-1930s, circulation reached half a million.<br />
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GRIT wasn’t like other newspapers. Aimed at rural and small-town America, GRIT was a good-news newspaper. Here’s Lamade’s editorial policy:<br />
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“Always keep Grit from being pessimistic. Avoid printing those things which distort the minds of readers or make them feel at odds with the world. Avoid showing the wrong side of things, or making people feel discontented. Do nothing that will encourage fear, worry, or temptation... Wherever possible, suggest peace and good will toward men. Give our readers courage and strength for their daily tasks. Put happy thoughts, cheer, and contentment into their hearts.”</blockquote>
I liked GRIT for the extensive comics section, containing next Sunday’s comics. They were, unfortunately, in black and white, but I did get to read them several days early. (GRIT arrived Thursdays, and I sold them on Fridays.) A number of the strips weren’t carried in the local paper, the Decatur Daily at all: Mandrake, Prince Valiant, and Terry and the Pirates, among others.<br />
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As a salesman, my big advantage was that I had access to my father’s office building. He was a vice president of Mutual Savings Life Insurance, one of the largest companies in town. Mutual Savings occupied Decatur’s only skyscraper, towering six full stories over Bank Street. I started on the first floor and made my way up, and quickly reached a circulation of over 50 copies a week — more than $3.50 in income. I was a rich man; paperbacks cost 35¢ to 40¢, so I could buy five books a week with plenty of cash left over.<br />
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Most of GRIT’s customers were secretaries and clerks, many of whom I think actually enjoyed the “good news” paper. The executives on the sixth floor, I think, by and large bought it as a courtesy to my father, but that was okay by me. The fifth floor was most fun; it was home to WMSL Channel 23, the NBC affiliate and sole TV station in Decatur. The guys in the control room bought copies; the anchor of the evening local news bought a copy, and the kid show host, local legend Benny Carle, bought a copy. He did a publicity shot with me that appeared in an issue of the GRIT salesman newsletter, my first major media exposure.<br />
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I had a few customers not in the Mutual Savings building, so my mother would drive me around on Saturday mornings, then drop me off at the book-and-Hallmark Card shop where I’d pore through the limited selection of science fiction and get my reading fix for the week.<br />
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I sold GRIT for about two and a half years, starting in 1964, when I was in sixth grade, and continuing until the summer I started ninth grade, when I got a job as a page in the local library, where I worked for the great sum of $1.00/hour all the way through high school.<br />
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But that’s another story.<br />
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<br /></div>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-63375011558917302312012-07-24T10:31:00.001-04:002012-08-07T08:13:38.356-04:00Let's Go to the Tape, Johnny! (Watergate Part 7)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods demonstrates how she might have erased 18-1/2 minutes of a key Watergate tape.</td></tr>
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<br />
For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Watergate">here</a>. This week, the revelation of the White House taping system.<br />
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On July 16, 1973, as we learned in our last thrilling episode, former White House deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a heretofore secret White House taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee, more formally known as the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices. Two days later, on July 18, 1973, Nixon ordered the tape recorders turned off.<br />
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Unlike previous Presidential taping systems, the Nixon system was automatically activated by voice. Previously, the President had to manually activate the taping system by flipping a switch. Of course, no sensible president would voluntarily tape himself talking about potentially criminal actions, but in the case of Nixon, the automated nature of the tapes suggested that if he had indeed made self-incriminating statements, they would be on the tapes.<br />
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The previous month, former White House counsel John Dean had famously testified before the Watergate Committee. Although Dean himself had managed a large portion of the cover-up, he had increasingly suspected that he was being groomed as the scapegoat for the entire affair. As a result, he began providing information to the Special Prosecutor, and subsequently appeared before the Senate committee, implicating numerous senior administration officials including Attorney General John Mitchell and Richard Nixon himself.<br />
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The obvious flaw in Dean’s testimony was that it was his word against the President of the United States. But if the tapes confirmed what Dean was saying, it would substantiate his testimony. Accordingly, Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, subpoenaed eight tapes.<br />
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Nixon initially refused to release the tapes, on the Constitutional grounds of executive privilege and the separation of powers, then added another claim that the tapes were vital to national security. In October 1973, under increasing political pressure, Nixon offered a compromise in which he would allow Mississippi Democratic Senator John Stennis to review and summarize the tapes, and report his findings to the Special Prosecutor.<br />
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When Cox refused the compromise, as chronicled in our last installment, Nixon ordered what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. The pressure didn’t go away, and a few weeks later on November 1, Nixon appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. A few days later, on November 17, Nixon famously announced, “I am not a crook.”<br />
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As 1974 began, bad news for the Nixon Administration began to mount, and in April of that year, Nixon decided to release typed transcripts of the relevant tapes, from which the infamous phrase “expletive deleted” originated.<br />
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(As an aside, a friend of mine, the daughter of columnist Jack Anderson, told me how Anderson’s newspaper column got the transcripts before the Senate did. It seems that Anderson had a White House janitor on his payroll, who fished the single-use carbon paper out of the trashcans and delivered it to Anderson. The daughter, Laurie, taped the carbons to a lampshade and typed up the contents for her father.)<br />
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Meanwhile, the court case made its way to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in the case United States v. Nixon, ruled unanimously (with justice William Rehnquist recused because he had formerly worked for Nixon’s Justice Department) that the tapes should be released. Six days later, on July 30, Nixon complied. The transcripts confirmed Dean’s testimony.<br />
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The damage was already done. The House Judiciary Committee had passed two articles of impeachment already, with the third passed on the same day the tapes were released. To avoid a trial in the Senate that he would surely lose, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.<br />
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<br /></div>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-45735850962963285312012-07-17T08:00:00.000-04:002012-07-17T08:00:12.249-04:00The Legend of Wrong Way Corrigan<br />
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On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, in a modified Curtiss Robin airplane named “Sunshine.” His official destination was California, but 28 hours later, he landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome in County Dublin, Ireland.<br />
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He claimed he’d made a navigational error and misread his compass, thus gaining the nickname he’d bear for the rest of his life: Wrong Way Corrigan.<br />
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Like many young men of his generation, Corrigan was obsessed with flying. He took his first ride in a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” in October 1925 (paying $2.50 for the privilege, the equivalent of about $35 today), and started flying lessons a week later.<br />
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He took a job as an aircraft mechanic with Ryan Aeronautical Company in San Diego, a few months before Charles Lindbergh commissioned the company to build the <i>Spirit of St. Louis</i>. As an aircraft mechanic, Corrigan assembled the wing and installed the gas tanks and instrument panel for Lindbergh’s plane, and pulled the chocks when Lindbergh took off from San Diego to New York.<br />
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Obsessed with duplicating Lindbergh’s feat, Corrigan decided his target would be the family homeland of Ireland. He spent his lunch hours practicing aerobatics, flying up to a dozen chandelles in a row until the company told him to stop. Corrigan moved his practice to a field further south, where his bosses couldn’t see him.<br />
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He moved from job to job as an aircraft mechanic, honing his flying skills. He started a passenger service with a partner, and barnstormed around the East Coast. In 1933, he spent $310 (just under $4,000 today) on a used 1929 Curtiss Robin OX-5, and began modifying it to fly the Atlantic.<br />
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This was foolhardy in the extreme. He took two old Wright Whirlwind engines and cobbled them together to make one engine with greater horsepower, installed extra fuel tanks, and applied for a permit from the Bureau of Air Commerce. They turned him down flat — his plane was too flimsy for transatlantic flying, though it was acceptable for cross-country flights. Undaunted, Corrigan kept working. He reapplied several times, and was turned down each time. By this time, he’d invested nearly $900 in his plane, but the plane had no radio and the compass was 20 years old.<br />
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A journalist later wrote about the plane: “He built it, or rebuilt it, practically as a boy would build a scooter out of a soapbox and a pair of old roller skates. It looked it. The nose of the engine hood was a mass of patches soldered by Corrigan himself into a crazy-quilt design. The door…was fastened together with a piece of baling wire.”<br />
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On July 9, 1938, Corrigan flew <i>Sunshine</i> from California to New York, cruising at 85 miles per hour. The flight took 27 hours. Toward the end, a gasoline leak threatened to bring him down; the cockpit filled with fumes. He arrived unannounced and unheralded; the big story was Howard Hughes, preparing to take off on a world tour.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyxGspyaeIHLqz27XzN7bR8iZALM22s0dmjtbc6bBnlPlw3KZbzBDfX6mSbBWC4F4DK78K2P5hMbGkIuD2WfgHCjn1z15PyAFApOVem1NDWR7EOw5es8TQ_f8Eh0t3O1eLxqkccasIzR6J/s1600/Wrong_Way_Corrigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyxGspyaeIHLqz27XzN7bR8iZALM22s0dmjtbc6bBnlPlw3KZbzBDfX6mSbBWC4F4DK78K2P5hMbGkIuD2WfgHCjn1z15PyAFApOVem1NDWR7EOw5es8TQ_f8Eh0t3O1eLxqkccasIzR6J/s320/Wrong_Way_Corrigan.jpg" width="234" /></a>Officially, Corrigan was supposed to return to California on July 17. In a hurry to meet his self-imposed deadline, he decided that repairing the gasoline leak would take too long. He loaded <i>Sunshine</i> with 320 gallons of gas, 16 gallons of oil, two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, and 25 gallons of water, and took off at 5:15 in the morning — heading east, not west.<br />
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For the rest of his life, Corrigan maintained that he’d always intended to fly back to California, and his flight across the Atlantic was an error. This is unlikely; he was a skilled pilot. Officially, he claimed he’d discovered his “error” after 26 hours. This is not entirely consistent with known facts. After 10 hours, the gas tank began leaking again, and his feet were soaked with fuel. He punched a hole through the cockpit floor with a screwdriver to drain the fuel. Rather than look for an opportunity to land (the most reasonable thing to do if he were really flying to California), he increased his speed to lower his total flight time.<br />
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In any event, 28 hours and 13 minutes after takeoff, he landed in Ireland, a remarkable achievement considering he'd flown under IFR conditions by needle, ball, and airspeed, with only a magnetic compass to aid him. American aviation officials, however, were livid. They sent a 600-word(!) telegram listing the regulations he’d broken, but his punishment was a slap on the wrist — his license was suspended for 14 days. More people attended Corrigan’s ticker tape parade on his return to America than had attended Lindbergh’s, but Lindbergh himself never acknowledged Corrigan’s flight.<br />
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Corrigan cashed in on his fame, endorsing “wrong way” products, publishing an autobiography, and starring as himself in an RKO movie about his flight. He earned $75,000, the equivalent of well over a million dollars today.<br />
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In later years, he tested bombers during World War II, ran for the U.S. Senate on the Prohibition Party ticket (winning 2% of the vote), worked as a commercial pilot, and bought an orange grove in California, most of which he sold for development after his wife’s death in 1966. One of his sons died in a plane crash in 1972.<br />
<br />
In 1988, on the golden anniversary of the flight, he allowed <i>Sunshine</i> to be displayed. After all those years, the jury-rigged engine still worked. That was the last time the plane was seen publicly; rumors suggest he dismantled the plane and stored pieces in several locations.<br />
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He died in 1995 and is buried in Santa Ana, California.<br />
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<br /></div>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-436621475219652372012-07-16T11:01:00.000-04:002012-07-16T11:01:35.900-04:00Tape Worm (Watergate Part 6)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/search/label/Watergate">here</a>. This week, the revelation of the White House taping system.<br />
<br />
Alexander Butterfield never planned to be part of a White House conspiracy, but by accident turned into one of the key figures in the scandal. A former Air Force pilot (he commanded reconnaissance aircraft during Vietnam), he retired from the USAF at the urging of college pal H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, and became Deputy Assistant to the President, responsible for the daily business of the White House ranging from visitor tours to overseeing Nixon's schedule.<br />
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In addition, Butterfield was responsible for maintaining Nixon's historical records, and in that role he oversaw a secret taping system that Nixon had installed in the White House. (Nixon, of course, was not the first president to do so. I've read transcripts of secret tapes made by FDR, and have downloaded for my iPod the JFK tapes covering the Cuban Missile Crisis. Eisenhower and Johnson also taped Oval Office conversations, but I haven't heard any of them personally.)<br />
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After Nixon's reelection in 1972, Butterfield became administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. In July 1973, members of Sam Ervin's Senate investigation team interviewed Butterfield about his time in the White House. Previously, John Dean had mentioned that he suspected White House conversations were being taped, and so the committee staff routinely asked witnesses whether they knew it was true. Although Butterfield avoided revealing the taping system voluntarily, he had decided to tell the truth if asked directly. Ironically, it was the minority Republican counsel, Donald Sanders, who put the direct question to Butterfield, who replied that "everything was taped ... as long as the President was in attendance. There was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped."<br />
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The significance of this was obvious, so the committee quickly scheduled Butterfield to appear before the full Senate committee on July 16, 1973, where chief minority counsel Fred Thompson (later part of the <i>Law and Order</i> television cast) asked the fatal question, "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"<br />
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There was, of course, no suggestion that Butterfield was part of the cover-up. He remained as FAA administrator until 1975. Butterfield, interestingly, was one of the few who guessed the real identity of "Deep Throat," telling the Hartford <i>Courant</i> in 1995, "I think it was a guy named Mark Felt."<br />
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Only about 200 hours of the 3,500 hours of conversation recorded on the Nixon tapes even mention Watergate, but eight of the tapes were subpoenaed by Special Watergate Counsel Archibald Cox. Citing executive privilege, Nixon refused. When Cox did not back off, Nixon ordered his attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to fire him. Richardson refused and resigned, as did his deputy William Ruckelshaus. It fell to the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, to fire him.<br />
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That was hardly the end of the taping problems. Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, made a "terrible mistake" and erased five minutes of the June 20, 1972, recording. Strangely, the gap grew from five minutes to 18-1/2 minutes. Woods denied she had anything do to with the additional 13 minutes. While only the participants know for sure what was discussed in those missing 18-1/2 minutes, H. R. Haldeman's notes say that in that particular meeting, Nixon and Haldeman spoke about the <a href="http://sidewiseinsights.blogspot.com/2012/06/duct-tape-and-watergate-watergate-part.html">arrests at the Watergate </a>that had taken place three days previously.<br />
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Although various attempts were made to explain away the gap, the President's attorneys eventually decided that there was "no innocent explanation" they could offer for the problem.<br />
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In any event, it wasn't the 18-1/2 minute gap from June 20 that was the problem, but rather the "smoking gun" tape of June 23, six days after the break-in. On that tape, Nixon agreed to pressure the CIA to ask the FBI to halt its investigation of the break-in on the grounds that it was a national security matter. That, according to the Watergate special prosecutor, constituted a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, a Federal — and impeachable — offense. That tape was released in late July 1974; Nixon resigned in early August.<br />
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<br />Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312595099575093231.post-89827551040544722032012-07-11T11:31:00.001-04:002012-07-11T11:32:30.472-04:00Lord of the Instrumentality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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July 11, 1913, is the birthday of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, known to science fiction fans by his <i>nom de plume </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith">Cordwainer Smith.</a><br />
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If you haven’t read Cordwainer Smith, mere words cannot convey the beauty and mystery of his writing. His stories are like nothing else in science fiction. Written in a narrative style heavily influenced by Chinese storytelling, they tell the story of the Instrumentality of Mankind, a world nearly 14,000 years in the future, in which the servile classes (the “underpeople”) are evolved from animals: C’mell, half cat, half woman; D’Joan, a Joan of Arc figure of dog origin; and the mysterious E’Telekeli, an eagle who leads the fight for emancipation. The ruling class, the Lords of the Instrumentality, are Chinese mandarins, powerful and tradition-bound. The Instrumentality is held together by the immortality drug <i>stroon</i>, available only on the planet Norstrilia.<br />
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The real-life Paul Linebarger is as remarkable as the fictional creations of Cordwainer Smith. Paul’s father, a jurist, was recruited by no less than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen">Sun Yat-Sen</a> to help establish the legal system for the new Republic of China. Sun Yat-Sen became godfather to the young Paul, who grew up immersed in Chinese culture. He became fluent in six languages, and obtained his PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University at the age of 23.<br />
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As World War II began, Linebarger organized the first psychological warfare unit in the US Army, and wrote the classic textbook on the subject: <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Warfare-Paul-M-Linebarger/dp/0895561204/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342020484&sr=1-1&keywords=psychological+warfare">Psychological Warfare</a></i>, published in 1948. Although officially an academic, Linebarger did undocumented work for the CIA and DIA, and advised John F. Kennedy. He referred to himself as “a visitor to small wars.”<br />
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There’s circumstantial evidence, but no solid proof, that Linebarger was the real life “Kirk Allen,” the psychological patient whose strange story was told in “The Jet-Propelled Couch,” in Robert Lindner’s well-known book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-minute-Hour-Robert-Lindner/dp/1892746247">The Fifty Minute Hour</a></i>. “Kirk Allen” had created a far future world in which he believed completely. As part of Lindner’s attempt to cure him, Lindner himself became obsessed with that world.<br />
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Thanks to my friend Ralph Benko, I was elected to the exclusive Cordwainer Smith society, the Instrumentality of Mankind, whose limited membership includes the Linebarger daughters as well as a number of science fiction luminaries. Although the Instrumentality doesn’t do very much (I attribute this to the lack of stroon), it’s an honor I appreciate very much.<br />
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Paul Linebarger passed away in 1966, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.<br />
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<br /></div>Michael Dobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10160618239909704634noreply@blogger.com0