From a smart dude I know:
Jeff–this pull quote made me think of your ongoing efforts to alert people to the realities and consequences of the fight over who owns intent in language. It’s from Andrew Cline over at American Spectator:
"CAIR pretended that the comment expressed support for treating all Muslims as terrorists. NPR, in turn, pretended to agree, even though Williams categorically and convincingly disavowed such a view on the very same program and afterward. In the world of make-believe, the actual thoughts expressed by one's words are meaningless; their meaning is determined by the thoughts, feelings and perceptions others form -- or pretend to form -- in response."
More than any other single thing, I believe it’s been my essays on language and intent, and my willingness to call out those on both sides of the political aisle who rely on incoherent linguistic assumptions to buttress their worldviews, that has made me persona non grata among the chattering classes online. Well, that, and the fact that I’m a huge douche.
So be it. As long as the message finally works its way into the national conversation, and informs critical responses to the kinds of rhetorical tactics to which the wrong has long fallen prey (and which some on the right insist we continue to try to reconcile with the foundational assumptions of classical liberalism. So that we can lose more slowly), I’m happy.
Change the institutional thinking, and the institutions will follow. This works in both directions — but for years, only the left seems to force the issue.
Fight back.
OUTLAW!
Off to a birthday party. Back later.
Enjoy your day.
And you yours, Jeff.
link
Ah, language and intent in our media age.
Statement: “I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse.”
Actual Journalist (Jake Tapper): “Oh, that nice young fellow helped his old Uncle Jack get down from his horse.”
MSNBC Line up: “That depraved, sick man helped his crazy Uncle jack off a horse!!!”
And the blogosphere has to clean up the mess.
The Juan William’s case is merely the latest in a long series of moves that have effectively demonstrated the co-opting of meaning via a linquistic de-coupling of sign and signified based soley upon the identity of the sign-er and/or the identity of the one recieving the signified. It doesn’t matter what Juan Williams’ meant; it only matters what the PC police at NPR, under pressure from CAIR, decide his words can be interpreted to mean by someone.
It’s the death of language altogether and so obviously Orwellian my hope is that this situation will finally wake even liberals up to the very real connection between left-ism and fascism.
I believe if they set aside their law as and when they wish, their law no longer has rightful authority over us; all they have over us then is tyranny…and I will not live under that yoke.
-James Fenimore Cooper’s “John Winthrop”
The US Constitution. Ain’t living. Ain’t breathing. Just is.
Suck on it “progressives”.
OUTLAW!!!
Patrick Moynihan: You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.
Vivian Schiller: Facts, my dear Mr. Moynihan, are a matter of opinion.
PM: Whose opinion?
VS: Mine.
PETA will also be after you for killing a horse you fiend.
PETA will also be after you for killing a horse you fiend.
Proof positive. Ain’t no such thing as a “no spin zone”.
link
Juan Williams is just a small symptom of a much broader pathology.
One thing I never understood about your intentionalism theory. So Juan Williams seems to broadbrush Muslims in his remark and people take it that way. Therefore it’s his job to clarify? Who gets to define the intent?!
“It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood” — Karl Popper
Cynn, the problem isn’t how people took it, but what they did about how they took it. Do you really like the idea of firing somebody for admitting that he feels what everybody feels?
McGee: Everybody does not necessarily feel that way. I would say the failure of intentialism here is the prior assumption of what Williams meant, and that was not immediatly evident.
Plus, I do not agree with his firing for expressing a personal opinion outside his professional duty.
next time you’re on an airplane start screaming “allah ackbar” and get back to us with the results
Newrouter: That’s identification, not intentionalism.
i onced called a guy in
work a ‘bone head’
cuz i meant he was an idiot
and some pussy butt boy said ‘sssshh’
and i said why?
and he told me that it was rascist, what
i said?
fuck them-the whole lot
kind hearts and coronets is on turner classic/watch it/ bye 4 now
The problem is where the utterer is no longer around to explain the intent. Then you have a linguistic foreclosure crisis.
that’s juan stating the obvious
the problem is some listeners changing the intent to their political advantage
Juan had to qualify his remarks. How does that impact intentionalism?
Feel what way? If you want your intent properly understood you need to state clearly what you intend to say.
My #25 inadvertently answers Cynn’s #24. But I intended to address that point so it’s good.
Also, an honest listener who does not understand what was said, owes it to the speaker to request clarification. If the speaker fails to do so, then it’s on him.
Or her.
It’s on the speaker, or the listener? What if the speaker is gone? Who has privilege?
cynn, what intentionalism says is that the people at NPR weren’t trying to figure out what he intended. They were imposing their own intent on Williams’s words.
It’s certainly possible to try and be wrong, as it is with anything. But in this case, Williams’s words were so clear that anybody actually trying to divine his intent would have an easy time, and would come up with something diametrically opposite to what NPR & co. found.
Regard,
Ric
Ric: Why is it our responsibility, as decoders, to try and assign intent to any and all utterances we encounter? NPR’s mistake was not an improper vetting of William’s remarks, but rather a general pass that he was expressing his personal opinion outside his responsibility as an NPR reporter. Beyond that, it is Juan’s business, not NPR’s. The fact that you all are tasking NPR with determining Juan’s intent is silly.
the fact is npr is a leftoid org needing a reason to hammer faux news with their newly found soros money and the juan fit the mold
Sorry, that’s not necessarily a “fact.”
I would say the failure of intentialism here is the prior assumption of what Williams meant, and that was not immediatly evident.
Might not be with the “creative editing” that goes on, but people don’t speak in 140 characters or less (really!). The whole exchange with O’Reilly and MKH easily demonstrates they were all talking about Muslims that adhere to a jihad mentality.
Anyone that saw the whole piece and “took away” the Williams was talking about “all” Muslims is a liar or a fool.
and I include the newswriters who keep saying “Williams said seeing Muslims on planes make him nervous”… that is NOT what he said he gets “on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.”
an NPR reporter
Williams was NOT a reporter. Try and keep up.
Not if NPR is going to respond to what he said.
It belongs to the speaker, period. If the speaker is gone YOU GO AND FUCKING FIND HIM.
Why is it our responsibility, as decoders, to try and assign intent to any and all utterances we encounter?
Because, dear, that what responsible adults who believe in honesty in communications, do.
I’m pretty sure somebody at NPR had his phone number. Or his e-mail address.
Maybe they could send him a tweet.
It’s not like he dropped off the face of the earth.
However much they might have wished him to.
Fair enough, Darleen, but the creative editing feeds into what the ordinary decoder receives. That changes the perception. Perhaps you could reconstruct the event.
Then the ordinary decoder needs to also determine the intent of the editor.
Communication is hard work, if you’re honest about it.
@39: Darleen, haven’t you refudiated Jeff’s whole premise?
link
Oops, Dar’s 36. Prove me wrong.
Jeff, is it true that we get to determine the intent of the messenger? If so, I have misunderstood.
MgGhee is dense. I can recast the whole of Shakespeares’ works because I can’t find him. Or else I let the consensus remain.
Strangely enough it was Juan’s job both at NPR and at Fox to express his opinions on whatever was the subject matter at hand. He was not a “reporter”, he was a pundit.
What we see here is that, at least for all persons at NPR, the opinions they express are, must be, formulated for them and so those expressing them at NPR are now relegated to to the role of readers of others opinions. Actors in someones play.
Intentionalism has been explained here many times. Look at the archives. In the left-hand column of any page at PW under “Greatest Hits” is a link that will result in 53 articles on Language/Intentionalism. If you’re serious about understanding it, look there.
Please explain how this particular issue has anything to do with intentionalism. Otherwise, you’re just some librarian.
Lots of piffle comes with the ripple.
MgGhee is dense. I can recast the whole of Shakespeares’ works because I can’t find him. Or else I let the consensus remain.
Pontius Pilate had similiar problems.
Seriously though, are you saying that because Shakespeare isn’t alive to testify in some court of public opinion, you’re free to do whatever you want with his words? Does Shakespeare’s rose smell like a gardenia because that’s the label you’ve decided to impose upon it?
cynn
haven’t you refudiated Jeff’s whole premise?
Of course not. Communication between us as individuals is, even with a common language and culture, always fraught with the chance of misunderstanding. When one person speaks or writes, they are taking something in their brains and using the tools their society possesses (language, alphabet, etc) crafting something that represents what was in their brain. If you, the receiver, take that crafted something and totally ignore the crafter and make the something match what is in your brain, the object is no longer a product of the crafter, but it is yours.
Honest responsible adults try and receive the crafted object as the crafter intended. They will make every honest effort possible in gathering evidence – ie looking at the context in which the object was crafted, knowing or exploring other objects from the crafter, communicating further with the crafter him/herself.
Anything else is either naivety or profoundly dishonest.
A receiver may find that the crafter is unreliable or dishonest, but that comes from examining the record not from pulling something from the receiver’s ass that conforms to what the receiver wishes to impose on the object.
“PETA will also be after you for killing a horse you fiend.”
The fucking horse died!!
Just how good are you at jacking off horses?
Please explain how this particular issue has anything to do with intentionalism
Excuse me? NPR fires Williams not for what he said, but for what NPR said he said (which had no resemblance to what it really was).
It is like the “niggardly” case when the ignorance of the readers/receivers to the meaning of the word got the writer fired for racism. (and their refusal to even consider the meaning of the word. that is was “too close” to “sounding” like that other word was good enough to have that cracker bounced.)
Is jacking a horse the same thing as rustling a car?
If the speaker genuinely cannot be found, you’re stuck with the cold hard fact of his words. If you can’t figure out what he means based on that, maybe you should try something simpler.
Like, say, “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.”
And Cynn, if I were you I’d be really careful about appealing to “consensus.”
Darleen: But Juan Williams had the opportunity to clarify his remarks. Unlike many. Do you not see the import??
“Is jacking a horse the same thing as rustling a car?”
I’ve never heard of rustling a car, is it a hanging offense?
Funny though, how Cynn shifted her subject away from the cold hard facts of the Juan Williams case.
cynn — you are trying to make an invalid point because you’re putting too much into it.
People continually try to make of it more than it is. Intentionalism is nothing more than recognition that the other person is, in fact, a person who is trying to communicate something to you. If you accept that and try to interpret his words on that basis, you are recognizing his intent. If you don’t accept it, and try to impose meaning on his words without reference to him and his attempt to communicate, you aren’t hearing him at all; you’re talking to yourself. That’s really all there is to it.
Regards,
Ric
And he’s still fired. Do you not see the import???
Forget it: you guys are hopeless.
he did but you are ignoring it. in the interview in question.(grammar suck)
Juan Williams had the opportunity to clarify his remarks.
NPR gave Juan Williams the chance to “defend” his words before they shitcanned him? News to me.
running away doesn’t help your argument
link
“Hanging offense”…
Nothing?
Jeez, tough room.
I’ve never heard of rustling a car, is it a hanging offense?
Actually, I believe they burn you at the stake for having had “unnatural relations” with a motor vehicle, on the theory that hanging is too good for such a deviant; although I suppose if you gave a full and free confession and repented, they might garott you before they lit the pyre. My understanding is that unless the said motor vehicle can prove that it was an unwilling participant in its own violation, they burn it as well.
But Juan Williams had the opportunity to clarify his remarks.
He did? When? Because the context of the snippet was right there if someone was honest enough to watch for a couple of minutes instead of 15 seconds.
And clarify further? Certainly NPR didn’t give him that chance… he was called up by phone and fired. He even asked if he could come in and talk and the answer was “No”.
Do you understand the import of that?
“My understanding is that unless the said motor vehicle can prove that it was an unwilling participant in its own violation, they burn it as well.”
That’s gotta be a tough sell, proving that.
‘Cuz of the lubricants.
Willie or thor would know.
Ric this is hilarious. So that’t pretty much what’s going on here.
Jeff fired Juan Williams?
Cynn,
A sub-premise hear is that Juan Williams, an “analyst,” was fired because he gave voice to one kind of thought but Nina Totenberg, a “reporter,” can say whatever the hell she likes even if it deliberately overlaps with her beat.
Where this fits in with the Intentionalism thread, I don’t know. Where it registers on the hypocrisy-o-meter is pretty high.
That bastard!
hear-here
I do get the point of all this intentionalism stuff that Jeff is on about, I really do. But then, if you think about it, regarding the Juan William incident, and this has nothing to do with what Williams said, but rather what he said he feels, he is a bit silly. Here’s why. Any one or any group of men dressed in Arab garb, say those flat hats, praying caps, Afghan pakols, loose and airy long flowing light cotton jubba robes, dishdashas, that actually look quite comfortable. I think I’ll get one. Or those distinctive vest thingies, with sandals, or a guy with a t-shirt with squiggly writing on it, whatever, guys carrying Qurans, all these obvious people would be the very least likely to be dangerous on an airplane. Silly Juan. The dangerous people will blend in nearly imperceptibly. But I am always too annoyed by nearly everything else to be bothered with vigilance. I despise fellow airport travelers and by the end of a ride I’m ready to hate all humanity.
But airport hate is the worst of me. It shouldn’t count for everything. Here, let me try to erase that. Instead, have a look, if you like, at a condolence card I made and mailed off to a friend.
I heart everyone on an airplane
what doesn’t talk to me
“Intentionalism is nothing more than recognition that the other person is, in fact, a person who is trying to communicate something to you. If you accept that and try to interpret his words on that basis, you are recognizing his intent. ”
Whatever the hell that means.
Boy howdy.
that card is very spectacular
cynn did you see the spectacular card?
Makes perfect sense.
The dna peoples talk sense and anti-sense. cynn seems, intentionally, to want to be anti-sense in every of them . . .
Again, you’ve overstepped intenton.
Add to this that the intent itself is captured in the message at the moment something is turned from a bunch of signifiers (which we recognize as a function of convention) into the signs we (generally) assume them to be (or else, we wouldn’t believe we were dealing with language in the first place), and there you go.
Whether we signal that intent well is another question entirely.
So it’s the message at the moment that defines the reaction. Got it.
No, I don’t think you do.
The reaction is something else entirely — and what it is often depends upon what the person receiving the message thinks his job is. If he doesn’t believe it his job to divine the intent of the utterer – but instead insists that the message means whatever he can make it mean using conventional signals, or by attributing intentions to the utterer he doesn’t believe the utterer had — he isn’t “interpreting.”
All of which I’ve explained before at great length.
cynn shouldn’t be a telegraph operator
Your ramblings and denials and whatever since you asked what intentionalism has to do with this issue is why I didn’t bother answering you, cynn, beyond pointing you to the literature. I was proven correct in my guess as to how you would respond.
link
I’m sure you’ve explained it, and I don’t care to religitgate the issue. You are micromanaging the role of the decoder. As much as I deplore their reaction, NPR should have given Juan Willaims a grand pass because of his superb past. They had the sense to give this perspective; they chose to be stupid.
cranky-d: I am not here to be schooled by you; I am curious about how you would se your intentionalism sect in practice
see #10
On Wednesday during a speech in Parma, Ohio, President Obama decided to quote a former President to help justify his policy initiatives:
“But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves”.
i find it odd that geico is running ads attacking abe when the O! is attacking abe geico = gov’t employees insurance co.
It seems the intent of NPR (and others of their ilk) is to force all authors – analysts into narrow, channeled mindsets that they define for purpose of determining a political outcome. Anyone caught performing outside their narrow channel is quickly and severely punished. Intent of the author or analyst be damned; it’s all about keeping the politically ‘important’ ideas and memes properly controlled. If Juan Williams were a luge rider, this would be the ‘accident’ that killed him, not because he was flawed in his ability, but that the track was artificially contorted to almost impossible banks. Unless he carefully walked the course, he, and many others like him, will be doomed from the start.
Rustling a car.
The ‘ol banana in the tail pipe.
You guys are sick.
Also, I miss the part of the 80’s where Eddie Murphy was funny. Well that part of the 80’s and that one other time.
It’s truly Charlie Murphy’s world now.
Whether we signal that intent well is another question entirely.
As a babe in the woods with the intent thing, aren’t we culturally past the point where quality of signal or the ability to deliver it well even matters. The entirety and context of the full signal is now pointless. Or, the soundbite, the small piece of signal allows one of a type to smugly confirm an already determined intent.
Or, maybe there’s just no reasoning with the entrenched and dishonest.
Hi cynn.
Night, Lamont. Rest assured you haven’t addressed anything meaninful today! Except maybe at your meatjob.
Correct. Pace Mitch McConnell et al., the time for compromise with the statists is over. In the next congressional session, conservatives should give them the same regard they gave us during the health care debate.
Rest assured you haven’t addressed anything meaningful today!
Then it was a good Saturday.
Now you go enjoy your box of Franzia.
They should Mike.
But they won’t.
After the 2nd there will still be pork fed RINOs in DC who are about as consistent in their intent as Humpbot.
If Congress were comprised of Heaven’s Angels & Hell’s demons, the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham would still find a way to reach across the fuckin’ isle.
There’s gonna be a lot more work left to do.
In-cynn-cere. That intent seems clear from the demand, repeated every few months, to have intent explained to her.
Or have I got that wrong?
If the owner just leaves it in the parking lot, of course you can rustle a car.
No, you have it exactly right, RTO.
I’ll have to assume so, bh, unless cynn wishes to correct me.
Unless he carefully walked the course, he, and many others like him, will be doomed from the start.
Actually it is pretty simple to navigate with the NPR roadmap. All you have to do is stay on the left side of the road; the further the better.
oops dropped a couple of these “”
Comment by RTO Trainer on 10/23 @ 10:09 pm
Comment by bh on 10/23 @ 10:10 pm
Funny how she can’t figure it out when we seem to be understanding her just fine.
Or is that just my cynnicism showing?
I guess it depends on what you meant by that, Ernst.
“That intent seems clear from the demand, repeated every few months, to have intent explained to her.”
RTO,
she’s kinda like the girl from 50 first dates. Maybe she has this:
Jeff:
Cynn:
That’s Jeff alright! Beating his sensibility into insensible heads who’ve thoughtfully provided him with the stick!
Come and see the violence inherent in [Jeff’s] system. Help! Help! [Cynn’s] being repressed!
You mean other than a bad bit of punning RTO?
Unless he carefully walked the course, he, and many others like him, will be doomed from the start.
You just described my golf tour of Alabama.
That intent seems clear from the demand, repeated every few months, to have intent explained to her.
Which would be fine except she does it while stomping her foot like a 5 year old in the toy isle at Walmart.
Did you not intend to pun?
Danger’s was better.
I did, I did!
sdferr
Unless he carefully walked the course, he, and many others like him, will be doomed from the start.
That was the psychology the Soviets used to keep the peasants in line. If everything is illegal unless something is expressly legal, then everyday is an exercise is screwing up enough coverage to take a step outside one’s hovel.
It’s a malignant version of junior high — where the “in” student clique would make up a “cool” word or phrase and the minute it was adopted amoung the lesser students, the word would change. Then using the “old cool word” marked one has a hopeless loser. Over and over again.
That’s why Freedom is Slavery. You enslave yourself to walking carefully, and you can never walk carefully enough so your doomed. Only the slave, the one who walks the course that’s laid out for him is truly free.
Or so I’ve heard.
It’s a malignant version of junior high — where the “in” student clique would make up a “cool” word or phrase and the minute it was adopted amoung the lesser students, the word would change. Then using the “old cool word” marked one has a hopeless loser. Over and over again
As the last kid in 8th grade America who wore both Jams and parachute pants, and quoted what I thought were cool lines from Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, (I saved the Pretty in Pink quotes for the ladies), the other kids kept changing what was “cool”.
It was hopeless.
So I gave up break-dancing. And despite the Soviets, I got along much better in high school.
#100 RTO (and others) — what cynn wants is a rule, so she can apply Alynski to it — according to a really strict interpretation of subparagraph 14(c)(ii), you all violate Teh Rule every time you touch a keyboard you hypocrites, and according to 3(z)(iv) Williams should have been shot. What she got was ridicule and patience, so she declared victory and left.
Regards,
Ric
Still fuzzy on the “intent” thing.
Example: I go to watching a main stream, blockbuster type movie late some night on Cinemax. In the middle of it I fall asleep on the couch (maybe the movie was boring or it had Julia Roberts in it. Or I was tired. Or drunk. Whatever). Two hours later my gal turns the lock, comes in to find me on the couch, Cinemax (and whatever blockbuster movie was on) has now turned to Skinamax, and there are ridiculous people loudly having sex on my TV.
That’s implied intent.
That’s not fair.
I think what Cynn wants is simpler than that Ric. I think she thinks she can prove Jeff’s wrong about where the locus of meaning resides by refusing to understand what Jeff and others have said. It’s as if Dicentra had asked her to pass the salt, and Cynn responded, “what the hell is salt? I’ve never heard of this ‘salt’ you speak of.” This behavior, ironically enough, only goes to prove Jeff’s point about faulty linguistic premises and the abuses that rise from them.
She’s a good woman, you might be tempted to say.
[…] via email […]
No. The dangerous people will attempt to signal that they are not dangerous. Normally that’s done by being inconspicuous, but if you believe that people wearing a certain garb cannot possibly be dangerous then that garb becomes a “not dangerous” signal.
Welcome to the beginning of the counter-intelligence recursive rat hole; following that logic would lead you to believe that everyone is a potential threat. (Mainly because they *are* unless you have additional information about them.)
Cynn is OK it’s just that she is predisposed to assign intent from the left leaning viewpoint which automatically assumes all people of color are on the same page of her little leftist pagent.
There have been reams written on the meaning of Shakesperes words and we can be sure what was meant by, “A rose by any other name……..”
There have also been reams written on the meaning of the US Constitutiion, but a lot of people are still having problems with,”Congress shall pass no law……………………”
“Darleen: But Juan Williams had the opportunity to clarify his remarks. Unlike many. Do you not see the import??”
Ummmm, no he didn’t. They fired his ass over the phone.
God, you are So. Tedious.
Ah, #119 finally sums it up in a neat and orderly fashion. Thanks for that. May have to refer to that in future…
Juan was just tired of those mfkn sheiks on the mfkn plane. His problem is that he isn’t Samuel L Jackson
A.) Juan said that in light of all the people who’ve gotten mauled by mean, angry pitbulls he’s scaredy scared when he sees a pitbull on the street.
B.) He then said that in spite of this visceral reaction, he and everyone else must fight the urge to condemn or persecute all pit bulls because they’re perfectly lovable dogs (when not raised by the baby daddies of hoodrats).
Cynn: Clarify!!! Why do you hate pitbulls? Anti-pitbullite! Burp!
Can anyone seriously argue that NPR fired someone because they failed to understand his words?
Because that is just stupidly stupid.
No, they had access to exactly what words he said in full contect, and they very obviously formulated their own very clear interpretation of his meaning. They then used that interpretation to form a concept of how his words would be perceived by the larger audience. They saw little, if any, difference between the two, and for them that was a problem.
It was a problem because their interpretation of his meaning was one they did not find acceptable. More importantly (and admittedly) they did not like the fact that this concept was getting broad public exposure. They wanted to make their own opinion on this matter strongly known. There was also no way to undo what was done, so they needed to take action to reduce the chance of repeat events.
So they canned him.
It is called intolerance and the need for conformity. It is the left’s stock in trade.
Darleen: But Juan Williams had the opportunity to clarify his remarks. Unlike many. Do you not see the import??
Actually, I believe he was asked to apologize. Not clarify. His words meant what they said they meant, so he had to either take ’em back or apologize.
I was getting on a flight to Gran Bahamas, and some woman in full dress, right down to the mesh over her eyes was threatening the wrath of Allah to reign down on every single person who was looking at her. In an unbelievably strong north east accent. They were still gonna put her on that plane until, I and some bitter clinger christian hater pointed out that this person was threatening and praying for the death of every passenger. Cause we were all staring at her like some kinda farm animal at the supermarket I suppose.
I believe her intent was that she had been rejected at every step of her life, till she got gang banged by a bunch of dudes named Jamal and Malik in Central Park. This led her to the local mosque where she was beaten with shoes and found out that she liked the attention.
Arguing earnestly against intentionalism is self-refuting.
You don’t really mean that.
No, wait…
Damn.
“No. The dangerous people will attempt to signal that they are not dangerous. Normally that’s done by being inconspicuous, but if you believe that people wearing a certain garb cannot possibly be dangerous then that garb becomes a “not dangerous” signal.”
I will be fifty in the spring. I am of average height and I carry at least fifteen extra pounds than I should. The shoulders help, but I am still nowhere near “svelte”. Short haircut, trimmed beard with an increasing population of grey hairs.
I always travel in boots, clean jeans or stout khakis. Until 2001, I always carried a multitool on my belt. Now I have a key that is… useful for more than opening locks. Always wear a clean collared shirt and at least carry a windbreaker or hoody. Wear a hat. A long time ago a person I respect a lot told me about “taking the long way home” and I am always prepared to travel accordingly.
I’m old enough to be a grandpa. I am often traveling with my wife who has obvious and chronic medical disabilities. Or my daughters – the Goddesses.
And yet I get a personal eye-to-eye interview about every third time through the TSA clown course when I fly. Sometimes I have to wait for the elves to hoist the Anzio veteran out of his wheelchair to check for bombs. And watch the party of four to six to eight neatly dressed young twenty – to – thirty something men be ushered through AS A GROUP with all dispatch to their flight.
My wife thinks I’m clumsy, if she thinks I’m anything. And she’s seen me every day for twenty odd years. What the TSA sees I frankly don’t care.
Not that there’s anything wrong with box wine, but it’s wise to avoid overingesting.
Carin, those are the same thing. Aren’t they?
Oh, sorry, too much boxwine.
My meaning in language—–>[message]——->[you (mis)interpreting]—->[you becoming outraged (0~o)]——>Personal Outrage replacing Original Meaning and Intent——->=Fascist decoupling of Original Intent from Meaning (i.e., the divorcing of the free individual’s right to act freely through language in society by replacing original meaning with response to said meaning and then indicting said individual not for the original meaning, but for the response to its utterance).
That is, Juan Williams is punished because of the way that Vivian Schiller’s misinterpretation of his intent made her feel . . . . .
So, Juan Williams, OUTLAW vs. NPR, OUTRAGE Cagematch.
Juan Williams gets fired = $2Million Contract and expanded role at FoxNews
NPR = Damaged credibility for charges of censorship and hypocrisy
OUTLAW 1; OUTRAGE 0
TmjUtah, my comments were not intended to indicate that the TSA is doing a good job or that what the TSA is *doing* has anything in common with counter-intelligence activities. (Other than being counter to what an intelligent person would design to get the same job done. Yark, yark, yuk.)
At the very best, I could claim that the TSA is at the same level of threat identification that bour3@77 thought was true: “Oh, they are just too obvious to be a real threat.”
I would not make that claim since that’s not what I think at all. I think that it is all kabuki that is more harmful than effective. (At least the portion of TSA activities that deal with examining passengers. I’d hope that the TSA folks who examine the check-in bags are better, but I have not observed their work.)
Mark –
Sorry, not attacking your opinion or remotely disagreeing. I generally suck it up and go along, but I just go red when I untie my boots in the “security” line, is all.
Kabuki is the right word for it.
Who defines the intent?
Who defines the laws of physics?
No one gets to authoritively define the laws of physics. They are what they are. We only do our best to interpret them, some interpreters more accurate in hindsight than others.
What Williams meant is what he meant – it’s a moment lost in time to which we cannot return to alter. No one gets to define it. A thing defines itself. You can only interpret it.
Perhaps, like ‘settled science’, there is no such thing as settled intent. No one gets to declare the debate over. No source of authority that can declare the matter definitively.
When my lovely bride comes home from work looking a bit frazzled and harried, sometimes I’ll ask her if she had a tough day at work. My intent is to find out what kind of day she had, and to give her an opportunity to vent about bosses or traffic or customers or whatever is bothering her. Usually, this works great.
But some days, when I ask if she’s had a tough day, she thinks I’m saying that she looks like shit, as though her hair or clothing or makeup were horribly bad and I’m expressing my embarrassment to be associated with somebody who’d go outside looking like that.
Fortunately, I can clarify my intent at that point, and we can get down to making dinner while she talks about what has her on edge.
In cynn’s world, I would be divorced the very first time my wife misinterpreted my intent, and cynn would see that as justice being served.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/24/politics-and-the-spanish-language-a-review-of-yoani-sanchezs-cuba-libre/
This has to do with language and intent. She seems very nice.