Pot, Deflating Bubbles, And Other Word Battles

Words play a huge role in what we know.  Even our own observations are affected by the language we speak and think in.  We wrap our experiences in the words we have available.  Very few of us break those constraints and create new words if the ones we have are inadequate.

Here are some examples word issues in today's newspaper:

1.  Stop using the word 'pot' - An ADN headline:

Marijuana industry gets blunt: Stop using the word ‘pot’

". . .But marijuana still carries a stigma that surfaces with the use of old slang like pot and weed. For many, the words evoke an image of lazy, not-so-bright people who puff their lives away.
The image deeply bothers the marijuana industry, which is telling the public — sometimes gently, sometimes curtly — that they should use the word cannabis. That's the scientific name for the plant from which marijuana is derived."

Here, it appears the cannabis industry is trying to change its (in business jargon) 'brand.'  'Brand' is a word I dislike.  "Branding" epitomizes the idea of substituting the image of something for the actual essence of it. Branders want people to think about their product a certain way so it sells better.  It's the image, not the product itself, that they are selling. 'Brand' is a way of 'branding' the word 'deception' and making it into something that's seen as good.

I don't think that the name for cannabis matters all that much - it's the intrinsic product that people are  interested in, no matter what you call it.  I suspect those holding negative images of 'pot' are dying out.  That view was part of the political ideology that didn't like rock music, hippies, and Vietnam war protestors



2.  Bubble Deflates - Another ADN headline that comes originally from the New York Times:

BITCOIN FALLS BELOW $10,000 AS VIRTUAL CURRENCY BUBBLE DEFLATES

Did you ever see a bubble deflate?  Balloons and tires can lose their air slowly (deflate), but bubbles burst.  Except, it seems, in economics.  But then economists often deductive,  starting with theory they tell us how the world works.  It's the theory, not the real world that matters.   In economics, for example, people only  make 'rational' decisions. And, bubbles deflate.  It took people like Vernon Smith to actually do experiments to burst some of this economic bubble nonsense.

This is just lazy thinking.  Mixed metaphors are a kind of lazy thinking.  "A carpenter was the low rung on a totem pole." comes from a long list of mixed metaphors.   But if you google 'deflated bubble' you'll find lots of serious economics examples of this term.

3.  Other Word Battles

George Lakoff tells us that framing the debate is the most critical thing in political discourse.  We've fought over words like "illegal alien" versus "undocumented worker"; 'baby killing' versus 'pro-choice.'  The list goes on and on.

The conservatives have made a science of this and do it masterfully.  The never say 'the Democratic Party."  They say 'the Democrat Party." It's like taking someone's name and changing it just a little bit to irritate them and control what they are called.  It's a form of bullying.   And their most successful reframing was the term  'political correctness.'  Even liberal have bought into this perversion.

I've written about the origins of the term 'political correctness' in the past.  I don't want to repeat all that.

I also posted about my view of the difference between conservative and liberal use of restricting words.  Conservatives try to restrict words as a way to win debates.  If you ban or demonize words needed by your opponent, it rigs the whole debate.   Their opponents aren't allowed to use key terms needed to make their case.   The NRA has bullied the Center For Disease Control to end research on gun deaths in the US.  Without data it's hard to make a rational argument.  And the Trump administration has banned terms like 'climate change' and 'fetus.'

Liberals try to ban words that insult or demean or even terrorize other human beings, generally people who are NOT white heterosexual males.  There are plenty of other terms to use that are more respectful and so these bans don't hinder political discussion.  

"Jeff Flake knew his criticism of Trump would cost him. He couldn’t stop himself." Life Imitates Art

That headline in the Washington Post had more meaning for me this morning than it would have yesterday morning.

Last night we saw a play called "Church and State" put on by a group of folks called RKP Productions.*

SPOILER ALERT:  I don't think I can make my point here about being compelled to tell the truth without revealing a bit too much of this play.  And I'd encourage people to see the play and stay for the discussion. It plays two more times:  tonight (Saturday) and Sunday afternoon at the Alaska Experience Theater.  You can get ticket info here and then jump down to "Spoiler Over"  in this post.

In the play, Southern Republican US Senator Charlie Whitmore is three days from the election, when his New York campaign manager and his wife are asking him what's wrong?  Why is he so jumpy?  They're back stage at some venue where he's due to talk to a large crowd shortly.

He's trying to tell them, but it's hard.  It comes out in dribbles.  He's told a blogger that he doesn't believe in God.  His wife freaks out - how can you not believe in God?  The campaign manager wants to know specifically what he said so she can prepare some damage control announcements, give him a statement for the speech that's minutes away.

Slowly the whole context comes out.  They'd just been, earlier that day, to a funeral for the child (children?) of  family friends, kids who were killed in a school massacre.  The blogger had asked him if he had prayed for the kids and the Senator said 'No' and went on to question the existence of a god who would permit such things to happen.

The debate then ensues among the firmly Christian wife, the Jewish campaign manager, and the Senator about what he's going to say when he gets on the stage.  He tells them he can't lie.  They tell him that questioning the existence of God and mentioning tightening gun laws will cost him the election.  He insists he can't lie.  He'll let God inspire him in his talk.

Will he tell his 'truth' or will he read the prepared speech?

Spoiler Over

People will debate whether dropping out of the election was the right move for Flake.  Clearly Republican primaries are toxic these days plus lots of dark money would be poured into the race to defeat Flake.  Was dropping out now the dignified thing to do?  Is dignity more important than fighting for what is right, even if that doesn't win the election?

Democrats may laud Flake for standing up against Trump's boorishness, but they must keep in mind:

"If anything, [Flake] held on because he is a strong supporter of most of Trump’s policies and personnel decisions. He voted for his judicial nominees, his regulatory rollbacks and the GOP health-care plan."

Church and State, written by Jason Odell Williams,  ran off-Broadway until June of this year and so Alaskans are getting a relatively early look at this play.
Retired Judge Karen Hunt interviewed a representative from Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America (MDA) and then moderated a discussion (she emphasized it was not a debate) among audience members.  They've had such discussions after every performance and included NRA reps.

I think it's telling that when someone asked about where the MDA meetings were held, the speaker said that for security reasons, that info is only given out after people sign in to their Facebook page.



*I'd also note that RKP productions was put together by longtime Anchorage theater folks:  Bob Pond, who recently passed away, Richard Reichman, and Audrey and Bruce Kelly.  The program says that RKP

"has achieved what we consider to be meaningful theatre  programs by 'partnering' with other fine organizations:  Anchorage Community Theater, Cyrano's Theatre Company and Out North  Contemporary Art House . . "

Last night's performance was at the Alaska Experience Theater, the new home of Out North, and the large (only in comparison to the small) theater makes a much better space for live theater than it does for movies.  The closeness that makes the screen overwhelming, is great when there are live actors.


While the power of the NRA over gun issues seems insurmountable, it's helpful to remember that no great power exists forever.  As more and more Americans are personally affected by gun violence, extreme Second Amendment rights will be whittled down to a more sensible balance between the right to life and the right to own guns.

Political Correctness Republican Style: Ban On Term "Climate Change"

Here's a hypothesis I'm proposing:

When Democrats ask people not to use certain terms and phrases, it tends to be words that are demeaning or hurtful to categories of people.

When Republicans ask people not to use certain terms and phrases, it tends to be words that reflect truths they want to deny.

Is it true or not?  I'm guessing it might be, but I'm starting with way too little real evidence.  But here's just one example:  Expunging 'climate change' in government agencies.

From the Guardian:

"Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead."

From Politico:

"A supervisor at the Energy Department's international climate office told staff this week not to use the phrases "climate change," "emissions reduction" or "Paris Agreement" in written memos, briefings or other written communication, sources have told POLITICO. 

Employees of DOE’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy learned of the ban at a meeting Tuesday, the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order at EPA headquarters to reverse most of former President Barack Obama's climate regulatory initiatives. Officials at the State Department and in other DOE offices said they had not been given a banned words list, but they had started avoiding climate-related terms in their memos and briefings given the new administration's direction on climate change. . . 

A DOE spokeswoman denied there had been a new directive. "No words or phrases have been banned for this office or anyone in the department,” said DOE spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler."

Florida Center For Investigative Reporting:

"The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years. 

But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes. 

DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. 

The policy goes beyond semantics and has affected reports, educational efforts and public policy in a department that has about 3,200 employees and $1.4 billion budget."

Fortunately, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) is a Congressional, not Executive, agency, so it, apparently can still write about climate change.  Their report, dated Sept. 28, 2017 doesn't mince words:

"Why GAO Did This Study
Over the last decade, extreme weather and fire events have cost the federal government over $350 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget. These costs will likely rise as the climate changes, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In February 2013, GAO included Limiting the Federal Government's Fiscal Exposure by Better Managing Climate Change Risks on its High-Risk List.
GAO was asked to review the potential economic effects of climate change and risks to the federal government. This report examines (1) methods used to estimate the potential economic effects of climate change in the United States, (2) what is known about these effects, and (3) the extent to which information about these effects could inform efforts to manage climate risks across the federal government. GAO reviewed 2 national-scale studies available and 28 other studies; interviewed 26 experts knowledgeable about the strengths and limitations of the studies; compared federal efforts to manage climate risks with leading practices for risk management and economic analysis; and obtained expert views.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that the appropriate entities within the Executive Office of the President (EOP), including the Office of Science and Technology Policy, use information on potential economic effects to help identify significant climate risks and craft appropriate federal responses. EOP entities and the Environmental Protection Agency did not provide official comments on the report."

Actually, they do mince words.  The opening of this overview talks about the research in a way that gives deniers lots of cover:

"The methods and the studies that use them produce imprecise results because of modeling and other limitations but can convey insight into potential climate damages across sectors in the United States."

Maybe that's there for those folks who only read the first paragraph of so.  The rest is pretty alarming, though from what I can tell, they are very conservative in their estimates of the costs of not dealing with climate change - both through lowering carbon emissions and mitigation efforts to deal with the impacts of climate change.

You can see their overviews here and the whole forty page report here.

But I need to keep collecting more examples of what Republicans complain about as 'political correctness' and the words and phrases (and in the case of 'taking a knee' actions)  they don't want others to use.  Will my hypothesis hold up.

I'd note that I've discussed political correctness before and basically it refers to someone or organization using their power to keep people from using certain words or espousing certain ideas.

Most recently I wrote about what I dubbed 'Republican political correctness' and Colin Kaepernick.  Rather than repeat what I said then, I'll just let you go to the link.  That post has links to earlier posts on the topic.

I would note that this climate change example is basically a form of censorship in an attempt to stifle discussion of what I think is the greatest threat to humanity.  And it's similar to the NRA's successful campaign to prevent the Center For Disease Control from doing research on gun violence.  Without data, scientists can't 'prove' anything.  Now that is real political correctness.  "You can't study what we don't want you to study."

Often Foreigners See Us More Clearly Than We See Ourselves

Sometimes I think that many, if not most, Americans think of people living outside of the US as not as smart, not living as good a life, just somehow less than Americans.   But I suspect that non-American see us much more clearly and objectively than we see them or ourselves.

Most educated folks outside the US tend to speak and read and understand English at a level that few Americans (other than immigrants) can match with other languages.  They can read understand our newspapers and listen to and understand our television news.   How is it that someone who only speaks American English thinks he's smarter and knows better than people in other countries who speak their own language plus ours, and sometimes a few more?

They know way more about us than most of us know about them.

For example,  this Dutch TV host seems to see our gun problem much more clearly than many Americans.  How many Americans even know who heads the government of Holland, or even what his or her title is?






OK, to be fair to Americans, because we have been the West's most powerful nation and have great influence on the rest of the world,  we are the country that others are most interested in knowing about.  Or at least have had the most reason to keep track of what we do.  And because English is the lingua franca of most of the world, it's much easier for English speakers to travel the world using English.  The people of Holland cannot expect too many people, when they travel outside of Holland, to speak or understand Dutch.  So they have a greater incentive to learn at least enough English to get by with.

While that explains why it's easier for us to just get by with English, it doesn't change the fact that that means the rest of the world knows a lot more about us than we know about them.  And that gives them a leg up on us that we should be more humble about than we are.

Black Humor Alert

Sometimes sick humor is the only response to the news.  Here are some headlines I expect to see soon.


1.  Guinness Book of Records' New Category:  Most People Killed and Injured By A Mass Shooter

Sick, but the news I heard on NPR kept saying "the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history" which to some will be a challenge to set a new record.  There will be records for one person shootings, two person shootings, police shootings, military massacres, etc. And surely there is someone out there who wants to know about the deadliest mass shooting BEFORE modern U.S. history, so they can beat that too.  And Listverse has gone where Guinness has yet to go.

2.  NRA Establish 24 Hour Massacre News Channel  

As I listened to NPR (looks pretty close to NRA, doesn't it) switch to all day coverage of Las Vegas today, I realized it's only a matter of time before we need full time coverage of mass murders.  They'll fill in with other more mundane murders on slower days.  The more shootings, the more people will want more guns to compete for the Guinness records or to protect themselves.



The gun control people want to limit who gets guns and the kinds of guns they get.

The pro-gun people (chiefly sponsored by the gun and arms industry through the NRA) argue that people, not guns, kill people, so everyone (except Muslims probably) should have unlimited access (it seems since they seem to start lobbying if a member of Congress even thinks about gun control.)

It's clear that both people and guns together kill people.  A person with a knife can kill a small crowd, but not fifty, and not from a distance.  People can also use bombs and vehicles and other ways to kill more people at once.  But automatic weapons seem to be the most efficient and effective way to kill many people in a short time.

Then there's the people.  The president used the word 'evil' to describe the Las Vegas killer.  That's a word that is bandied about whenever there is a mass killing.  Evil is a word that makes the killer seem to be inherently bad through and through.  An agent of Satan.  (ISIS claimed credit for the Las Vegas killing, but I haven't heard about Satan's claim yet.)  Not someone you might know and say hi to every day.

The stats on deaths by guns around the world, make it clear that the easy access to weapons in the United States plays a role in the carnage here.  And as we learn about people involved in mass shootings, there's always some sort of long simmering resentment of people in general or some group of people.  Mostly based on personal issues of some sort.

There is currently a high level of anger among people in the United States.  Our current president claims that anger is what got him elected and he may be right.  But my point here is that people who commit mass murders often are people with a great deal of anger about something - loss of a job, loss of a spouse.  But underlying it all is loss of respect, probably most importantly self-respect.

We have a society that produces a lot of angry people with declining self-esteem.  I would argue that a number of social, political, and economic factors play a part.

Capitalism, which reduces everything to money and making it as efficiently as possible, plays a role, by squeezing more work out of employees for less money and using much of the employee share to enrich officers and shareholders.  That's the abstract part.  More concretely technology is making workers redundant.  Technology and foisting work onto the customer is now rampant.  It started, in my experience, with self-service gas stations.  Now travel agents are almost gone as people have to go online to book their own tickets.  Receptionists are gone as we spend a minute or more listening to simulated voices giving us choices of buttons to push until we finally get to what we need - and the companies seem to hope we won't need a human.  We have self service lines in the grocery.  Each of these changes cuts out jobs.  Businesses have been fighting unions forever.  With fewer employees represented by unions, workers rights and wages and benefits erode and erode.  Lots of people work long hours for less money.  A smaller number of workers get good wages and benefits.

Pluralism is a political theory of governance that stems from the idea of separation of powers and the competition of interest groups to influence policy decisions.  The money spent by corporations to support candidates and ideas, to lobby legislators, and to spin truth to the public has gone up significantly.  So we have a majority party that wants to cut millions out of the health care programs and wants to cut taxes to the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes.

Both capitalism and pluralism share the idea that the best outcome comes from the competition of self-interested players.  And while surely different interests keeping watch on each other is helpful, the theory doesn't account for things like altruism and community spirit.  Self-interest was the only thing most economists counted as 'rational' thinking for years.  It's all about competition.  And the balance falls apart when some groups gain much greater power to compete than others.  And that's what has happened over the last 60 years as we've moved from a country where the gaps between the richest and poorest in society, and the lowest and highest paid employee in a company, were much lower, to our current (and worsening) situation where the gaps are growing greater and greater.  And if the Republicans manage to pass the kind of tax reform our president is extolling, it will get worse.

I'd argue that it is this spreading sense of loss of economic and political power that plays a huge role in the anger Americans feel these days.  If we don't address that, we won't affect the people who not only are angry, but are also unhinged enough to commit suicide through spectacular mass murders which give them so sort of attention.  And as I mentioned in the previous post (not at all thinking about writing this post since Las Vegas hadn't yet happened), bad attention is better than no attention.

These shooter know that their lives will be the center of national, if not world, attention for at least several days if not more.  They will get their 'glory' for the way society has treated them.  I'm not saying their thinking is right, but I'm just trying to offer a possible explanation for behavior that seems unexplainable.  Because if we don't understand why people commit such acts, we have no hope for finding ways to prevent them.  Calling them 'evil' essentially puts all the blame on the shooter and doesn't allow for reflecting on how our society helps to create so many angry, bitter people with access to weapons that can kill fifty people in a few minutes.

As I listened to NPR this morning, I kept hearing the same stories over and over.  They simply do not have enough information to fill the time with meaningful new news.  It's as though they feel that to compete with social media, they have to report each tidbit of new information - whether confirmed or not - because otherwise people won't listen.  I'd argue that people would like to hear more reasoned thoughtful stories and can wait a few hours for serious updates on the current crisis.  Only people who might have a direct connection to the story - people whose friends and family might be involved - have a compelling reason to stay closely tuned in.  And they'd probably do better with social media outlets where they can set up two way communication.

But we all have a responsibility to let the media know we want more thoughtful coverage.  Instant news is less important than well-done news.  And it may well be that people like me are in the minority.  That we have become, as a nation, sensation junkies.  That news, for most people, serves the functions of entertainment and confirmation of our own biases.  If that's the case, democracy won't survive.

Kindergarten Killers And The NRA

Here's what the NRA's LaPierre said:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.

Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it?

Kindergarten Killers

I decided to check up on this video game.  It's free to play online.  It's very cartoonish - not at all realistic.  Remember that the LaPierre's basic argument was that the only way to stop massacres is to arm the schools.  It's interesting to note what he didn't tell us when he used Kindergarten Killers as an example of vicious, violent video games:

• the guy with the gun is the school janitor AND 
• all the kids have guns!

Screen Shot from Kindergarten Killers

Yes, the man who said schools needed to be armed, had problems with this video in which the kids were armed.  Maybe it's because despite the kids with guns, the shooter can still carry out his vile act.

Video games are different from the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.  Not because Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood didn't have violence aimed at scaring little children.  They did.  

But in the video games, instead of being the victims, the players can become powerful and take on all the people who are making their lives difficult.  So, if someone were being bullied at school, I'm sure that Kindergarten Killer would give a kid a sense of power by getting back at his tormentors.

Screenshot from Kindergarten Killers

Do Video Games Cause People To Kill?  

I personally don't think that kids can play violent video games which include graphic acts of violence on the part of the player without it having negative effects on the players.  An LA Times article had an overview of research on the impacts of violent video games:

A number of studies have shown that watching a lot of violence on television or playing violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt produces aggressive tendencies in kids. Rowell Huesmann, a professor of communications and psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says that the strength of the evidence is on par with data that say smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer.

Other researchers pooh-pooh such assertions and say that scientific findings have been decidedly mixed — with several studies finding no effects of violent video games on children and teens who play them.
In addition, such critics say, when effects are observed in studies, they have little or no relevance to psychological states that trigger violence in real-life situations.

It goes on to say the research has positive and negative findings, but looks to more longitudinal studies that will look at effects on the same kids over time.

Generalizing from any single study to the whole population of is always suspect.  Finding cause and effect relationships, when there are numerous other and often hard to determine  factors in the environment is tricky.  But if I had to put money down on what researchers will say in twenty years, I'd bet that they'll say something like:

• While the vast majority of kids who play violent video games may have immediate short term increases in aggressiveness, there is no danger that the games lead them to acts of illegal violence.  However, for some small number of kids with psychological issues, insufficient parent supervision, and/or a variety of other compounding factors, the games can lead to a greater likelihood of committing violent acts. [Don't quote this without the caveat above]

But then, the number of people who commit mass shootings is a tiny fraction of the people who kill people annually with firearms.  As a percentage of the whole American population, it would require so many zeroes after the decimal point that most people wouldn't even know how to say it.  (Over 30,000 people a year are killed by firearms in the United States.)

Also, most of the people who have committed mass murders in the last 30 years, didn't play violent video games as kids, because they weren't around.  

While I personally could live very happily in a world without violent video games,  I still don't think that banning them would significantly reduce the number of mass shootings. 


Antonin Scalia Gave Game Makers First Amendment Rights

Let's see now.  If I recall correctly, Scalia is considered one the most conservative members of the US Supreme Court.  Yet in 2011 he wrote the opinion that rejected the California (that home of Hollywood and many video games) law that restricted children's access to violent video games.  From the LA Times:

“Scalia dispatched all of the major arguments for the law. A technical but vital issue was whether the court must look at the law with "strict scrutiny," the practice in other free-speech cases. Scalia answered yes, meaning that the law had to serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored to meet that purpose. Scalia found no such interest in the protection of children from imaginary violence. He ridiculed studies relied on by the state to show a link between playing video games and aggression in children. Referring to one expert, Scalia said that "he admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner."”

Other Issues

NRA vice president LaPierre's statement Friday is an interesting basis for doctoral dissertations in a number of fields from linguistics to criminal justice to media.  That was my realization as I started to review it Friday.  A quick analysis just wasn't in the cards.  But I hope to make a number of smaller posts, like this one, from it.

I would also add on this topic - violent video games - that LaPierre's attack on video games might have had some persuasive power had he:

1. Not convicted them ("a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people."), but simply raised the legitimate questions that should be raised.
2. Had not blamed them and a number of others (violent movies, politicians, the media, etc.) yet exonerated the one item without which these mass murders couldn't have happened as horrifically as they have - the guns that were used in them.  They are the single factor that is linked, without any question, to all the mass killings.  And, of course, had he not so emphatically exonerated the NRA. 

[I accidentally hit the publish button before this was finished and then deleted it.  On some blogs the link stayed up.  Sorry if you had trouble finding it.]