Turn on the television and tune in to some local channel at news time, especially during the winter—or the spring or summer or fall. Let’s just imagine what you might hear, between the live shot outside a courthouse where nothing has happened in hours and the vital health information regarding the importance of Upsilon-7 vitamins to the diet.
Here’s Stormy Raines with the weather.
Thanks Brice. Batten down the hatches tonight as we prepare for a real blast of winter. We’ll have all the details in just a moment.
This is when you endure the ad for a local car dealer who needs speech therapy and the announcement that local weather is brought to you by Kia. Finally Stormy reappears on the screen.
I hope you didn’t put away your winter coat and gloves yet. If you don’t need to go out tonight or tomorrow or the next day, then stay inside. Don’t even go near the windows. A vast, scary blast of winter coldness is moving this way. It’s big and it’s cold and there’s a good chance that we’re all going to die! Snowfall accumulations of nineteen to fifty-six inches are possible [in an alternate universe] with temperatures bottoming out in the low teens [in my freezer].
Fast forward twenty-four hours. Look out the window. Exactly seventeen flakes of snow are jockeying for position on your driveway, desperately seeking shade to avoid the mid-thirties temperatures and direct sunlight.
This is the story of television weather forecasts all around the country. They give us results like these:
· A forecast of extreme tornado activity yields winds too feeble to hold a kite aloft.
· A report of a killer heat wave leaves a skim of ice on the pond.
· A prediction of dimension-rupturing thunderstorms results in forty-five seconds of gentle rain.
Of course, in fairness, meteorology isn’t exactly a science—well, okay, I guess it is, but it’s not respectable like stock picking and phrenology. Still, we might expect a better track record than these people achieve.
Okay, okay, these people are predicting the future, so we should cut them some slack. They’re every bit as accurate as the experts who forecast professional football seasons—The New Orleans Saints will win the Super Bowl after the 2007 season—or political contests—Rudy Giuliani is the Republican’s most likely nominee for president in 2008. But if their misses were simply a symptom of the vagaries of winds aloft and Doppler misreadings, shouldn’t we expect Stormy and company to miss high just as often as they miss low, to overpredict the precipitation as often as they underpredict it? It makes sense doesn’t it? But this isn’t what we find.
After many seasons of painstaking research and record-keeping, I have uncovered a vast meteorological conspiracy. For every one case of underpredicting the weather, the “light dusting of snow” that turns into a blizzard, we get a dozen cases of overprediction.
But why, you might ask, would these meteorological mediocrities continuously exaggerate the future? What possible motivation could they have?
The answer here is simple. How far would they get with this forecast?
Stay tuned for weather when Stormy Raines will explain how nondescript tomorrow is likely to be.
Yeah, the “We’re All Gonna Die!” forecasts do not reflect meteorological uncertainties. They demonstrate the desire for ratings. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge the TV channels their ratings. Ratings are a fine thing. If a local weather personality fell in the forest and no one was tuned in to listen, would it make any sound? I don’t think so.
But can they justify the constant worst-case forecasts that we receive on the basis of a need for ratings? Not in my neighborhood.
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan told us. As it turns out, if you listen the TV weathermen, you can count on hearing the wind blowing hard.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
It’s a Conspiracy—Bombastic
This entry involves a specific corporation, a large corporation that provides cable television, Internet access, phone service, and cheesy commercials to a huge swath of America. In the interests of privacy, politeness, and the avoidance of lawsuits, I’ll refer to them by a pseudonym. We’ll call them Bombast.
I have a love/hate relationship with Bombast. On the love side, I love having virtually limitless non-static-filled channels to surf through when I’m bored. On the hate side, I hate . . . well, let me count the ways that I hate.
1. I hate the plethora of ad-filled flotsam that they pump into my house. Here, I’m not gagging on the twenty-plus minutes out of each hour that the typical network fare carves out for endless Geico and McDonalds spots. It’s the sell-out of infomercials and home-shopping channels. Let me see if I have this right: I pay money to Bombast so that I can watch people who have paid money to Bombast to pitch products in my direction.
2. I hate the fact that I can’t get a decent signal on the channel numbers that correspond with local broadcast channels. Mostly I hate that when I complain of this to Bombast, they make excuses and eventually throw up their hands. “We can’t fix that problem, but that doesn’t change your billing status. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
3. I hate the constant bundles, specials, and promotions that the people at Bombast advertise 24/7 while never saving me a single dime.
4. I hate—and this is the one that sent me over the edge—this little bit of switch and bait. A month or so back, the geniuses at Bombast decided to move the Hallmark Channel from channel 31 to somewhere up in the digital domain. Why would they do this? Would it have anything to do with technical needs or artistic integrity? No. They moved Hallmark into the digital realm so that I would need to get myself a digital box.
“We can offer you that for free!” a breathless Bombast rep told me.
“Forever?” I asked.
Breathless then breathed. “Well . . . not forever.”
In short, Bombast offered me less product for the same price. It’s not that I watch the Hallmark Channel. It’s the principle of the thing!
That’s when I decided to pull the plug on Bombast. Calling them, I announced the death sentence. They invited me to bring my cable modem to their service center, which I did the next day. This was nine days ago. Here’s the killer. They still haven’t pulled the plug. The TV portion of my cable bill runs around $60 a month. They’ve now given it to us for free from around a third of a month. That’s a $20 gift. Should I love Bombast for that? Not just yet.
Here’s my prediction. Bombast will not send me a final bill. They’ll pretend that I never called in to cancel my service. They’ll conveniently fail to record that I returned the cable modem. Not to worry—I kept the receipt. Maybe I’m wrong—and if I am, I’ll admit it here—but I’m sticking to my prediction.
I have a love/hate relationship with Bombast. On the love side, I love having virtually limitless non-static-filled channels to surf through when I’m bored. On the hate side, I hate . . . well, let me count the ways that I hate.
1. I hate the plethora of ad-filled flotsam that they pump into my house. Here, I’m not gagging on the twenty-plus minutes out of each hour that the typical network fare carves out for endless Geico and McDonalds spots. It’s the sell-out of infomercials and home-shopping channels. Let me see if I have this right: I pay money to Bombast so that I can watch people who have paid money to Bombast to pitch products in my direction.
2. I hate the fact that I can’t get a decent signal on the channel numbers that correspond with local broadcast channels. Mostly I hate that when I complain of this to Bombast, they make excuses and eventually throw up their hands. “We can’t fix that problem, but that doesn’t change your billing status. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
3. I hate the constant bundles, specials, and promotions that the people at Bombast advertise 24/7 while never saving me a single dime.
4. I hate—and this is the one that sent me over the edge—this little bit of switch and bait. A month or so back, the geniuses at Bombast decided to move the Hallmark Channel from channel 31 to somewhere up in the digital domain. Why would they do this? Would it have anything to do with technical needs or artistic integrity? No. They moved Hallmark into the digital realm so that I would need to get myself a digital box.
“We can offer you that for free!” a breathless Bombast rep told me.
“Forever?” I asked.
Breathless then breathed. “Well . . . not forever.”
In short, Bombast offered me less product for the same price. It’s not that I watch the Hallmark Channel. It’s the principle of the thing!
That’s when I decided to pull the plug on Bombast. Calling them, I announced the death sentence. They invited me to bring my cable modem to their service center, which I did the next day. This was nine days ago. Here’s the killer. They still haven’t pulled the plug. The TV portion of my cable bill runs around $60 a month. They’ve now given it to us for free from around a third of a month. That’s a $20 gift. Should I love Bombast for that? Not just yet.
Here’s my prediction. Bombast will not send me a final bill. They’ll pretend that I never called in to cancel my service. They’ll conveniently fail to record that I returned the cable modem. Not to worry—I kept the receipt. Maybe I’m wrong—and if I am, I’ll admit it here—but I’m sticking to my prediction.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Agriculture, Marriage, and God's Word
In reading Wendell Berry and other writers on agriculture and land use in recent months, I have been struck by the analogy drawn between marriage and the land. The marriage relationship is not one to be easily disposed of. Similarly, our relation to the land should not be a temporary one or a consumer-oriented one. My relationship with my wife must be one that works today and forever. If not, then like those who use up the land and then move on, we’re not creating a sustainable relationship.
Some people do not nourish their relationships. They’re detached from the land or the spouse, allowing the relationship to wither and die. Others see the relationship as something that should serve and nourish them. They use up the land or the spouse, eventually destroying it.
I wonder if the same sort of analogy might be made in our relationship to God’s Word. There are those who ignore the Word. In that case, it does not wither and die, but their relationship never amounts to anything. Others see God’s Word as nothing more than something to be used. They grab prooftexts to shore up their pet positions. Or they mine the Word as something to satisfy their needs. Neither of these is a sustainable, nourishing position.
A true relationship between a person and God’s Word is one that nourishes the person and glorifies God’s Word. The Word is allowed to bring forth fruit and change the person. This idea is just an idea, but with a bit of development. It might be a good idea. Let’s see where it goes.
Some people do not nourish their relationships. They’re detached from the land or the spouse, allowing the relationship to wither and die. Others see the relationship as something that should serve and nourish them. They use up the land or the spouse, eventually destroying it.
I wonder if the same sort of analogy might be made in our relationship to God’s Word. There are those who ignore the Word. In that case, it does not wither and die, but their relationship never amounts to anything. Others see God’s Word as nothing more than something to be used. They grab prooftexts to shore up their pet positions. Or they mine the Word as something to satisfy their needs. Neither of these is a sustainable, nourishing position.
A true relationship between a person and God’s Word is one that nourishes the person and glorifies God’s Word. The Word is allowed to bring forth fruit and change the person. This idea is just an idea, but with a bit of development. It might be a good idea. Let’s see where it goes.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Heath Ledger
Don't get me wrong. I'm not some sort of heartless meanie, but I don't care all that much that Heath Ledger died yesterday. Let me rephrase that. I don't care more about Ledger's death than about the demise of any other twenty-eight-year-old with a lot of talent to offer the world. If this were my nephew in his mid-twenties, I'd care a great deal, although he doesn't have Ledger's talents.
I mention this because both of my twenty-something daughters found out about the news from my mouth. Daughter number two complained of having a bad day. I indicated that she didn't have as bad a day as Heath Ledger.
"What's up with him?" daughter number one asked.
"He died."
You'd have thought I died. Frankly, I'm not sure they would have reacted more strongly had they learned that a family member--say that twenty-something cousin--had died.
Why is it that a guy they've never met and probably never will meet drew that sort of a reaction from the girls? I'm not sure, but it's an interesting topic to mull over.
I mention this because both of my twenty-something daughters found out about the news from my mouth. Daughter number two complained of having a bad day. I indicated that she didn't have as bad a day as Heath Ledger.
"What's up with him?" daughter number one asked.
"He died."
You'd have thought I died. Frankly, I'm not sure they would have reacted more strongly had they learned that a family member--say that twenty-something cousin--had died.
Why is it that a guy they've never met and probably never will meet drew that sort of a reaction from the girls? I'm not sure, but it's an interesting topic to mull over.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Global Warming Validation Redux
Who'd have thunk that a mere twenty-four hours after pounding out that last post, I would stumble across this story indicating that between January 1998 and December 2007, average temperatures actually went down by a tiny fraction. I'm no climatologist, but this seems pretty fishy to me. That's all.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Global Warming Validation
I've been reading a good deal about global warming recently, ranging all over the map of ideologies and scientific disciplines. What I've come to recognize is that a significant number of media types, governmental functionaries, and non-climatologist scientists have declared that the debate over global warming is over while the actual scientists who study this sort of stuff remain much more divided on the matter.
When the dust settles, we'll know which side had it right, but I'd really like to know before then. You see, if we decide that global warming is real--and if we turn out to be wrong--then we'll pour a huge amount of money into fighting it. If global warming turns out to be simply an Al Gore hallucination, that money will be largely wasted. And if it winds up being real but not fixable, then we might as well invest in bigger air conditioners.
On the other hand, if we opt to reject the current consensus on global warming then we all fry, drown, or otherwise die. I don't want to be wrong on this one, and since meteorologists seem to struggle to forecast tomorrow's weather, I can't get real excited about their prognostications regarding twenty years out.
So here's the question that I'd drop in the lap of the debaters: What results in what time frame can we agree on to demonstrate who is right? Let me explain. I recall somewhere back in my science education that Einstein theorized about light being affected by gravity. Most physicists accepted this theory as correct as they embraced relativity, but they still performed an experiment. During an eclipse, they noted, the light from a star, traveling past the eclipsed sun, should be bent slightly therefore making the star appear to be in a different spot in the sky. They performed their measurements and waited for the eclipse to see if, indeed, the star's light bent. And it did. Einstein's theory was vindicated.
Today, at my house, the temperature is a balmy twelve degrees, hardly the stuff of global warming. However, I'm not so naive as to believe that one cold day disproves an overall warming trend. But 2007 was not warmer than 2006, which in turn was not warmer than 2005. Presumably, global warming should produce some . . . warming, right? But again, we don't need to see each year inexorably warmer than the one before. But what sort of warming trend should we be able to observe to know that the earth is indeed heating up? Will a five-year trend suffice? A ten-year trend?
I'd like to hear both sides of this debate set out figures that say, essentially, "If we don't observe at least this sort of movement, then we'll shut up and concede defeat." I think they owe us this much. After all, if the Gore crowd is wrong, we're going to flush a lot of money down the toilet, while if the denier crowd is wrong, oodles of people will die. It seems like some level of accountability is the least they could offer.
When the dust settles, we'll know which side had it right, but I'd really like to know before then. You see, if we decide that global warming is real--and if we turn out to be wrong--then we'll pour a huge amount of money into fighting it. If global warming turns out to be simply an Al Gore hallucination, that money will be largely wasted. And if it winds up being real but not fixable, then we might as well invest in bigger air conditioners.
On the other hand, if we opt to reject the current consensus on global warming then we all fry, drown, or otherwise die. I don't want to be wrong on this one, and since meteorologists seem to struggle to forecast tomorrow's weather, I can't get real excited about their prognostications regarding twenty years out.
So here's the question that I'd drop in the lap of the debaters: What results in what time frame can we agree on to demonstrate who is right? Let me explain. I recall somewhere back in my science education that Einstein theorized about light being affected by gravity. Most physicists accepted this theory as correct as they embraced relativity, but they still performed an experiment. During an eclipse, they noted, the light from a star, traveling past the eclipsed sun, should be bent slightly therefore making the star appear to be in a different spot in the sky. They performed their measurements and waited for the eclipse to see if, indeed, the star's light bent. And it did. Einstein's theory was vindicated.
Today, at my house, the temperature is a balmy twelve degrees, hardly the stuff of global warming. However, I'm not so naive as to believe that one cold day disproves an overall warming trend. But 2007 was not warmer than 2006, which in turn was not warmer than 2005. Presumably, global warming should produce some . . . warming, right? But again, we don't need to see each year inexorably warmer than the one before. But what sort of warming trend should we be able to observe to know that the earth is indeed heating up? Will a five-year trend suffice? A ten-year trend?
I'd like to hear both sides of this debate set out figures that say, essentially, "If we don't observe at least this sort of movement, then we'll shut up and concede defeat." I think they owe us this much. After all, if the Gore crowd is wrong, we're going to flush a lot of money down the toilet, while if the denier crowd is wrong, oodles of people will die. It seems like some level of accountability is the least they could offer.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Pursuit of Happiness, Part 4
So far we've looked at the height and width of happiness, leaving us with the length or depth as our remaining dimension. So what is the length or depth of happiness? For reasons that will quickly become obvious, I'd prefer to use the world length in this situation, because of its double meaning. The length of happiness refers simply to how long it lasts.
We've talked already about how the thrill of riding a roller coaster is a a reasonably high bit of happiness, but it is not a piece of happiness that lasts very long. If you're a coaster addict and you truly enjoyed a ride, then the natural thing for you to do upon exiting the coaster is to dash around to the entrance to ride it again. I can remember a couple of times in my life when I actually didn't have to get off a roller coaster since no one was waiting to get on. That's sweet!
But why do we dash around to the entrance again? If the thrill were not simply high but long, we'd walk out of the ride exit quite contented. "Well, that was great. Maybe I'll try it again next year!" we might say. But we don't.
On the other hand, when I walk out of a pizza buffet, I don't ever dash around from exit to entrance, eager to start my eating all over again. The thrill of the pizza, unlike the thrill of the roller coaster, lasts for a while. Last semester, I ate at a pizza buffet just about every Thursday for lunch. Once a week is enough pizza buffets for me, but come Thursday, I was ready to hit the slices again.
What lasts longer than a pizza buffet? What happiness have you ever experienced that remains in force for more than a few days? If you buy a new computer, you're probably ecstatic about it for a few days, but gradually the thrill wears off. The same thing goes for a new car or a house. There just aren't very many things that make you happy and keep you happy. The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1969. For Chiefs fans, that happiness has long ago worn off. In fact, although that victory was before my time, I'm pretty sure that it didn't stick very long at all.
We now have three dimensions to our happiness. The next step is to explore the world of solid happiness. But that's for another day.
We've talked already about how the thrill of riding a roller coaster is a a reasonably high bit of happiness, but it is not a piece of happiness that lasts very long. If you're a coaster addict and you truly enjoyed a ride, then the natural thing for you to do upon exiting the coaster is to dash around to the entrance to ride it again. I can remember a couple of times in my life when I actually didn't have to get off a roller coaster since no one was waiting to get on. That's sweet!
But why do we dash around to the entrance again? If the thrill were not simply high but long, we'd walk out of the ride exit quite contented. "Well, that was great. Maybe I'll try it again next year!" we might say. But we don't.
On the other hand, when I walk out of a pizza buffet, I don't ever dash around from exit to entrance, eager to start my eating all over again. The thrill of the pizza, unlike the thrill of the roller coaster, lasts for a while. Last semester, I ate at a pizza buffet just about every Thursday for lunch. Once a week is enough pizza buffets for me, but come Thursday, I was ready to hit the slices again.
What lasts longer than a pizza buffet? What happiness have you ever experienced that remains in force for more than a few days? If you buy a new computer, you're probably ecstatic about it for a few days, but gradually the thrill wears off. The same thing goes for a new car or a house. There just aren't very many things that make you happy and keep you happy. The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1969. For Chiefs fans, that happiness has long ago worn off. In fact, although that victory was before my time, I'm pretty sure that it didn't stick very long at all.
We now have three dimensions to our happiness. The next step is to explore the world of solid happiness. But that's for another day.
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