HUMANITIES 499.1001-- Primary Sources and Codified Language--THE "HAL" SYNDROME

 CH203.1002

Dr S Pasqualina

University of Nevada, Reno Fall 2018

James L’Angelle    12 Dec 2018

HAL

     “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?” This iconic phrase from Stanley Kubrick’s film  2001, A Space Odyssey ushered in the new millennium way back in 1968. It became a stark warning for the world as it accelerated into yet another technological revolution. Although Earth never made it to Jupiter by the turn of the century, virtually it went far and beyond into another frontier, cyberspace. The question now is, what lies out there? Like the universe itself, are there no boundaries or are there terrifying limits such as black holes and event horizons? This is a great problem not just for the 21st Century, but for civilization itself. Beyond the problem is a greater one, how does man shut technology down when, and if, it comes to that?

Consensus of opinion is in order to write a convincing essay one must first state a thesis, then find evidence to back it up. What if something else surfaces while the search for evidence is underway? For instance, a thesis is stated:

     “What is the problem of the 21st Century, and what do we do about it?” 

Let’s say the problem of the 21st Century is, as in the opening paragraph, “HAL,” the “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.” The psychotic computer represents runaway technology of the new millennium and has to be terminated, how to go about it? Given a set of primary sources to first, define the problem and second, define the solution, is the assignment. However, if all the primary sources were written in the wrong “codified language,” which defines the problem as social or philosophical such as racial or political in context, the evidence will not support the thesis. Controls on investigation are limited by the fact that the given primary sources are broken down chronologically into four groups and analysis can only be made by drawing evidence from two to four sources in each group. The objective, therefore,  is to find in the sources evidence contrary to conclusions normally drawn from the text, in other words, the consensus of opinion.

    The following primary source ranges are considered: 

Group 1: Pre-colonial to 1855 (pre-Industrial Revolution); 

Group 2: Antebellum to 1899 (Industrial Revolution);

Group 3: 1900-1939   (post-Industrial Revolution)

Group 4: 1940-present (The Technological Revolution).

 In each group it will be necessary to extract evidence that runs contrary to the accepted value of the context as to what it represents. 

     Beginning with the first group, in the account of A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, published in 1682, Mary refers in the “Eighth Remove” to one of her duties in captivity:

     “During my abode in this place Philip spake to me to make a shirt for his boy...and afterwards I made a cap for his boy...There was a squaw who spake to me to make a shirt for her Sannup...another asked me to knit a pair of stockings.” (Rowlandson, 23)

Common interpretation of the autobiography is that Mary Rowlandson had it tough at the hands of whom she referred to as “savages.” Completely overlooked is what she did, she sewed and knitted, why? Because it would be ninety years before the invention of the spinning-jenny. What has knitting to do with a computer running amok 300 years later? It’s in the anticipation of technology, and the lack of it, written clearly into the text.

     Next, in 1744, the Onondaga chief Canassatego delivered his Speech at the Treaty of Lancaster in which he stated:

     “It is true that above one hundred years ago the Dutch came here in a ship and brought with them several goods, such as awls, knives, hatchets, guns…” (Canassatego, 29)

The conclusion drawn from the speech is that the Indians were treated unfairly, their land stolen through dubious charters and an offer to send the tribes’ children to settlers’ schools rejected in favor of swapping settler kids into tribal culture. What’s missing is the acquisition of technology by the Iroquois Confederacy in the form of awls, knives, hatchets and guns. The foundation for the advance of technology in the New World is clearly visible in the speech by Canassatego.

    The cotton crisis was mentioned in Correspondence Between Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln, dated January 28, 1865 and included in Group 2: Antebellum to 1899. In the early 1800’s the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney placed unreasonable demands on the South to produce the crop, as noted in the Eric Vanhaute report titled  The European subsistence crisis of 1845-1850: a comparative perspective:  (external document)

     “‘The Commercial Crisis of 1847’, which claims that in Britain in 1847 the downturn in production applied only to cotton, and that this was due to an exogenous factor - the shortage of raw cotton in the U.S. South.” (Vanhaute, 2)

Directly related to pressure on the South was the rise of territories in the immediate west and the desire to expand slavery into the regions for the further development of the cotton crop. Marx was keen to observe the demand for labor and crop in his letter to Lincoln:  

     “The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?” (Marx, 1)

The expansion of the slave market as a result of the cotton gin gave birth to the early days of the Industrial Revolution creating a series of on again, off again monetary crises leading up to the Civil War. Combined with the telegraph and railroads, technology was a runaway freight train that pushed to all corners of the continent, as noted by Simon Pokagon in The Red Man’s Greeting:

     “A crippled gray-haired sire told his tribe that in the visions of the night he was lifted high above the earth, and in great wonder beheld a vast spider-web spread out over the land from the Atlantic Ocean toward the setting sun.”

Once again, there is the anticipation of technology prophecy as seen in Rowlandson, continuing:

     “It’s network was made of rods of iron; along its lines in all directions rushed monstrous spiders, greater in strength, and larger far than any beast of earth. Clad in brass and iron, dragging after them long rows of wigwams…” (Pokagon, 146)

Pokagon compared the old man’s dream to the extensive network of railroads that had sprung up as the nation expanded west toward the Pacific, and 25 years had already passed since he wrote Red Man and the spike was driven that connected the two oceans.

     By the turn of the century, the question of what would become a major concern for America wasn’t what it would be, but how to manage it. Due to the rise of the assembly line, emphasis shifted from process to impact on the work force as presented in The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor: 

    “Prosperity depends upon so many factors entirely beyond the control of any one set of men, any state, or even any one country, that certain periods will inevitably come when both sides (the worker, the boss) must suffer, more or less.” (Taylor, 377)

Again, as before, the anticipation factor is considered but in terms of globalization, summarized in the phrase “any one country.” Faced with the rise of mass production, Taylor had to rationalize the relationship between worker and boss in order to streamline production. What lie in the immediate future wasn’t localization of production, but globalization of it. The kernel components for the problem of the 21st Century were becoming manifest in the early days of the 20th Century. 

     By the end of World War Two, President Harry Truman found himself thrust headlong into a brave new world highlighted by what came to be known as “The Atomic Age.” He called upon Vannevar Bush of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) to suggest a road to the future and Bush wrote back with Science, the Endless Frontier:

     “The bitter and dangerous battle against the U-boat was a battle of scientific techniques-and our margin of success was dangerously small. The new eyes which radar has supplied can sometimes be blinded by new scientific developments. V-2 was countered  only by capture of the launching sites.” (Bush, 390)

Alluding to sonar, radar and rocketry certainly placed Bush on a firm foundation for the advance of what was eventually to come in the form of computer technology, satellites and space exploration.

     The spinning-jenny was invented in England by James Hargreaves in 1764. (Wikipedia)  Without it Mary Rowlandson was forced to knit caps for King Philip’s tribe; it was a problem of the 17th Century. Today, we are forced to recognize that the problem of the 21st Century is not as simple although we can see precisely how it gets to be defined in uncodified primary source texts.  We have HAL as an example, or perhaps Failsafe (1964), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The China Syndrome (1979), and one that isn’t always mentioned, On the Beach (1959). When the day of reckoning comes Dave had better know exactly what he’s doing.

1. A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Classic American Autobiographies, edited by William L. Andrews,  Signet, 2003  Page 23.

2. The Treaty of Lancaster, Five Hundred Years (FHY), Casper, Davies & deJong, Pearson Learning, 2016, Page 29.

3. The European subsistence crisis of 1845-1850: a comparative perspective: E. Vanhaute, helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Vanhaute.pdf, Page 2.

4. Correspondence Between Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln, The Bee-Hive Newspaper, Nov 7, 1865

5. The Red Man’s Greeting, Simon Pokagon, FHY, Page 146.

6. The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor, FHY, Page 377.

7. Science, The Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush, FHY, Page 390.

8. Spinning Jenny, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_jenny

9. Failsafe (1964), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The China Syndrome (1979), On the Beach (1959). Internet Movie Database

     

ESCAPE FROM TAHOE-- Glacier in the Sky-- DECEMBER 2021

 December 2021

ESCAPE FROM TAHOE-- Glacier in the Sky-- 

     (Zinc, Laguna Beach)-- Plans had already been made to get out while the getting out was good. That happened on the day before Christmas Eve when the first signs of the severity of the record-breaking atmospheric glacier appeared on the horizon to the west. Having survived the bomb cyclone in October, there was no hesitation this time. What had begun just after Pearl Harbor Day and just before Christmas didn't fall into the usual pattern of December storms and that was the first indication of things to come. That early storm dropped enough snow to make work just short of unbearable; the only advantage was that the sun did come out after a few days and just about the same time a request for a week at the San Clemente resort came through. It was booked immediately.

     That post Pearl Harbor Day storm was gnarly enough as the drains on the office building froze immediately requiring a full day of moving a tall ladder after using the snow blower to clear a path below the upper deck to stage it. Icicles were already forming and ice in the drains had to be chopped loose and dropped to the ground before the coils installed on the roof were of any use. Even then, the entire system looks good in ads but is useless otherwise. All of the snow around the firepit and hot tub needed to be removed, amounting to yet another full day on the snow blower. The one thing about snow is that it is never "removed," just put into another place until it melts, hopefully by May. This wasn't the case as it didn't have time. The back decks on the upper two studios on the third floor had about four feet on them and that had to go. By the time all of this was done, starting with using the snowblowers to clear parking, as the plow was a no show at the beginning, the new glacier in the sky was headed for Tahoe. The rain began and lasted for two days even before the glacier began to descend in an unrelenting barrage that included whiteout conditions. That rain offered an opportunity on Wednesday, Christmas Eve Minus Two, to cut into the berm along the boulevard and get it out of the way, not that it would make much of a difference. 

     On Thursday, the warnings were clear and not just from the agencies tasked with keeping travelers off the highway. If getting out was going to happen, it would happen on Christmas Eve Minus One. A text message from the office inquired as to, "helping out with snow," (removal). Not a chance, the reply: "Did not want to risk injury before the drive." Packing was already done, and chains had been installed a few days before and left on the Toyota Yaris; a very dependable compact hatchback that ran like a snowmobile in heavy snow. Departure was about 14:30 PST on 23 December. 

     State Route 267 out of Kings Beach required chains and the old set installed on the front tires lasted until pulling up on Interstate-80 west when the driver's side chain blew a link. That was replaced with another one of the old chains and back on the road and cleared by CalTrans at the checkpoint, that same chain blew out going up Donner Pass, and pulling off at the Donner Lake off ramp to replace it. Using a chain from the new set, that held along with the one on the passenger front tire all the way to where chain controls expired somewhere near Kingvale in the whiteout. That was just the beginning of the drive and it had already taken about two hours. All the way into and past Colfax to Forest Hill for gas and a stop at McDonalds, the road was hammered with rain squalls that reduced visibility to near zero. Those would last all the way through Sacramento and most of the way down Interstate-5 to the Tracy cutoff and rest stop. Nobody was at the rest stop, it was clean. Somewhere south of Santa Nella, the clouds opened up and Orion, the Hunter, the constellation appeared high in the sky to the east. Then the half-moon rose over the Sierra Nevada range to the east, a stunning arrival to the landscape, and it would remain until more squalls settled in somewhere around the Fresno cutoff. The canopy closed once again, and squalls came and went for a hundred miles before a dense fog moved in and hung low on the freeway. There were few trucks and driving was not that difficult. A two-hour break at the next rest stop then back on the road to yet another rest stop before morning and just 100 miles from Grapevine Pass.

     The fog broke up and the sun came out at the Lebec rest stop. 

SWIMMING TO LOS ANGELES--- Beyond the Bubble-- UNR 2024

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09 December 2023

     No war vet was created in a vacuum nor does one exist in a bubble. Because of the preceding, it is  necessary to prepare for even more innovation nation.

     A close search of options to the bubble have been examined and the options are many..

1.) Checked with university admissions-records on the technicalities of spring 2024 registration. The JOUR 103 winter class, 3 credits, counts toward spring enrollment; which means, in spite of financial aid demands of at least 12 units to qualify for "full time" and the complete package of $5000, all but $2000 going for tuition, it will free up all the months from February to May.

     Other options are many, not to exclude waiting to hear from UC on transfer, some currently available certificate extension classes and work opportunities beyond the bubble.

10 December 2023

     With the spring semester right around the corner and the solstice and fall all but forgotten, there remains just one report to submit for a final grade. The presentation: "India: From Telegraph to Internet," went without a hitch and under six minutes.

     The decision to enroll full time for Spring 2024 beyond the winter 3-credit JOUR 103 repeat, will be deferred until the last minute. 

     New job opportunities: Laguna Beach, San Clemente, and Santa Cruz, has returned some surprising results. For the southern TAOR, the returns included a beach bicycle shop and a boutique; for northern California, the returns quite different.

     In the Santa Cruz TAOR, returns ranged from elderly assist openings to homelessness hostel jobs. Job details provided showed help with "toiletries" and autistic teens, troubled youth, disadvantaged and similar.  It's a startling revelation not seen beyond the bubble due to no previous search, using Indeed employment website, for Santa Cruz. Also says a lot where interests lie for southern California. Will elaborate on further.

     Much has happened in the past week worthy of reporting. It is important to refelect on the recent presentation in the cybersecurity class. At least half the class did not present due to points earned on the final grade through extra credit. This allowed for an opportunity to achieve greatness. Those who did not present considered the class just another requirement and being a participant  didn't matter enough.

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ENG301.1002--Essay 002: Reflection on Argument Experiments --U OF NEVADA FALL 2020

ENG301.1002 

James L’Angelle 

University of Nevada, Reno

K. Miller , Professor

22 November 2020 

Essay 002: Reflection on Argument Experiments

 
Introduction:
     Rhetoric as a skill dates all the way back to the dawn of if not civilization, at least, civilized man. Since then, any number of methods have been created from traditionalist, to modernist, to revisionist. How and where they can be employed is part and parcel to that very art of discourse, that rhetoric. A skilled orator, a debater, an influencer, can get even the most formidable foe to agree, through logic, charm, even by virtue of outright deception. Some of the methods are cited below in particular circumstances, or for the sake of this essay, as “experiments.” As each is explored, invented, then where it stands in the spectrum of traditionalist, modernist or revisionist, will also be analyzed.

 
Part One: Experiment in Invitational Rhetoric-- In the essay written by Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin and published in the Communications Monograph in 1995, the groundwork for analysis is based on one of the first paragraphs;
     “The traditional conception of rhetoric, in summary, is characterized by efforts to change others and thus to gain control over them.” (Foss, Griffin, 3-4)
     The authors then note this traditionalist approach is “a rhetoric of patriarchy.” They introduce the non-patriarchal, or feminist, position on rhetoric as “equality, immanent value and self-determination.” Whether this new stance is modernist or revisionist can ultimately be applied to the example in which it is found. In the experiment for Part One, it will be noted that the requirement, according to the rubric, is “explore these and related concerns by trying out IR strategies with family members, friends, co-workers, and/or strangers.” Access to the first three was limited for the experiment, the method chosen was to interact with “strangers.”
     The Foss, Griffin proposal was written 25 years ago, the internet in its kernel stages of development. Today it is an ideal platform to engage an audience and invite it to participate in the discussion. One innovative method is to write a post on a blog and link it to a social media page with high traffic where reader response can be found in comments. This was the basic format of the experiment. The blog chosen is a personal one titled Eyeless on Campus at Google. the blog posts there were copied and pasted to the Facebook page of the same title and boosted with a number of variables in order to draw the right crowd for review. It can also be tailored to fit any audience, which comes into a special ad category requiring a complicated process of self-identity before the ad can be approved. For instance, a blog post with the topoi of employment, housing, credit, politics and elections all fall into the special ad category and require an extensive self-identification process. Others do not, such as a review of a favorite film or suggestions for a getaway summer vacation. In order to get a good response sampling, two such posts in the special ad category were chosen for analysis with respect to invitational rhetoric.
     There was mention in the lecture of the usefulness of comments in rhetorical discourse. Some responded that they lacked substance, others suggested the comment sections and like buttons on social media pages show very little of the true position of the respondent. The statements were made with little or no evidence to substantiate them. This experiment challenges that position. Two blog posts that were linked to the Facebook page and boosted showed strong reader response through comments.
     The first was published on September 1, 2020 titled, #KENOSHA 53143-- Suspending Disbelief &--MYTH OF “FAR-LEFT” and drew 467 blog post visits. The second, published 3 days later, was titled, #SOLDIERS-- "Suckers," "Losers," "Misfits" & -- SUICIDAL DRUNKS and drew 169 website visits. Note that these are just the visits tabulated at Google analytics, there may have been many more as the audience tends to visit on mobile phones in stealth mode. Note also that the ad didn’t run the full course of the approved duration due to responses and new material being subject to approval. Blog posting and advertising is fluid and needs to keep up with the news to remain relevant for the sake of responses. #KENOSHA 53143 drew 216 likes, 169 comments and 20 shares. #SOLDIERS drew 117 likes, 42 comments and 2 shares. Content of the first blog post, #KENOSHA 53143, related to unrest following deaths of protesters but was in fact, a criticism that there wasn’t much difference between the “far left” and the “far right,” noting a 1985 article published in the British Journal of Political Science by Herbert McCloskey and Dennis Chong. The blog post included the famous Che Guevara poster that has been an iconic symbol of the Left since the Cuban Revolution of the mid-20th century.
     Vaughn Trapp commented;
     “Trump 2020....The One World Order is NOT your friend.”
     Frank Chase commented;
     “The prospect of four more years of President Trump is a lot scarier than an old poster of Che Guevara.” One commenter included a Trump-Pence 2020 banner in the response;
     Mike Hastings responded;
“I'm so glad that I learned to recognize and resist this attempt to indoctrinated us during SERE training at USAF Survival School!! This is one of the lamest I've seen!!”
     The “Reach” of the post, which was distributed in the special ad category in the United States only, showed 6,076 with 662 post engagements. By age-gender, it was predominately male (probably white) above 50 years old. California, Texas, Florida and New York were the leading “Locations” of the post. There is no tab that shows whether the particular demographic group of age-gender was deliberately targeted or whether women were left out of the Reach. 

     The reaction was particularly patriarchal, traditionalist, non-invitational by the Foss, Griffin standards, that is if the reach distribution was skewed in favor of the dominant patriarchal market. Translated, a poor, misleading example of invitational rhetoric that cannot be verified by the limited statistics available at Facebook.
     #SOLDIERS included an image of Sylvester Stallone in his role of Rambo, wearing his signature field jacket with the US flag logo on it.
     Dave Sweed commented;
     “I'm a deplorable , misfit , suicidal drunk who clings to my God and Guns and if Trump went on national TV to night and called me that I would still vote for him over the Socialist. As a young kid I remember a man with numbers Tattooed on his forearm when I ask what it was he just smiled and said it was a gift from der Sozialistiche, in German Sozialistiche means Socialist .”
     The Reach was 1,837 with 252 post engagements. The largest group was 30 percent male over the age of 65. Of the four in the previous post, Location was predominately Texas. Mike Byrd commented;
     “Sounds like what Democrats called soldiers returning from Vietnam as they spit on them.”
     Clearly, the forum was no place to test Foss, Griffin’s invitational rhetoric theory. It calls into question on a larger theoretical scale across the board the actual acceptance of modernist-revisionist rhetoric. True, audience response was good, if not a grand display of ethos and personality. Had the ads run longer, male-dominated, patriarchal, related to age would be the components that holds the traditionalist view together.           Had the rhetor anticipated this type of response? Had the rhetor crafted the post in order to trigger this ageist, patriarchal reaction? Examination of posts by female responses showed a non-invitational rhetoric response as well, a pro-patriarchal tone. Perhaps it isn’t the best method of experimentation after all.

 
Part Two: Listening for Cultural Logics-- This rubric requires, “engage, an opposing viewpoint on an issue important to you. Use one or more of the 4 moves in Ratcliffe's rhetorical listening method. You’ll need to log your reactions and any shifts in thinking during this period.” 

     In the first week of November, 2020, the regime in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia accused the breakaway state Tigray of a deliberate assault on a military base within its region. Tigray is just south of Eritrea and is still considered a part of the sovereignty of Ethiopia, the second most populous nation in Africa. The separatist government in Mekele denied the attack allegations but it didn’t stop the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, from sending in his defense forces to neutralize the opposition in his northern command sector. The result is the ongoing civil war with an invasion, a refugee crisis, demands by foreign entities to cease hostilities and, of course, atrocities. 

     Again, from a revisionist point of view, where content appears to be subject to intent, the Rhetorical Listening theory of Krista Ratcliffe tends to place the rhetor at the mercy of the audience;
     “employed in this study, understanding means more than simply listening for a speaker/writer's intent. It also means more than simply listening for our own self-interested readerly intent, which may range from appropriation (employing a text for one's own ends), to Burkean identification (smoothing over differences to achieve common ground), to agreement (affirming only one's own view of reality).” (Ratcliffe, K., 28)
     Prime Minister Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2018 for his deal with Eritrea to end hostilities, has shown his two-sided method of ruling the nation. Ratcliffe calls for accountability; “we are indeed all members of the same village, and if for no other reason than that (and there are other reasons), all people necessarily have a stake in each other’s quality of life.” (31)
     The telephone lines have been cut, the internet is down, no foreign news media is allowed on the battlefield, the Prime Minister has flatly rejected mediation. Ahmed has broken just about every rule of cultural logics over something that might have been solved at the negotiating table had he let neutral observers an opportunity to sort out the initial transgression and bring to justice those responsible.
Modernist-revisionist rhetoric is only possible where civilized society allows it, otherwise traditional methods of justification reign supreme.

Part Three: Demagoguery Examples--
     Case One: The “Accidental” Demagogue. David Halberstam, in his memoir The Fifties, notes in Chapter Three the rise of one of most famous carnival barkers of the 20th century; “Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican senator from Wisconsin, stepped forward on Thursday, February 9, 1950, to lend his name to a phenomenon that, in fact, already existed. He was the accidental demagogue. On that day he gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, as part of the Lincoln Day weekend celebration. “ (Halberstam, 83)
     It was McCarthy’s “...I have here in my hand a list of 205…” Communists in the State Department. According to Patricia Roberts-Miller, the traditional method of one becoming a demagogue was following a certain pattern. She proposed another with yet another set of variables. Whether revisionist or modernist, none seem to fit the method employed by Senator McCarthy. Later on, in Chapter Seventeen of The Fifties, Halberstam noted the story of Rosser Reeves, the advertising man who changed the face of election campaigns when he went to work for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952;
     “In September, as he sat in the St. Regis Hotel, reading Ike’s clips from newspapers across the country, he concluded Ike was as bad as MacArthur. He was doing a terrible job of packaging and selling himself. He had the advantage of a popular, recognizable name, but he was letting it all slip away, talking in all kinds of directions about too many different things,” (396)
     Thus was born the spot ad that would revolutionize political persuasion on television, and give the demagogue a powerful new tool in the quest for power. Ike won the election in ‘52 and broke the stranglehold the Democrats had on the White House since the Depression. Somewhere between the carnival style barking of Joe McCarthy and the 15 second Alka Seltzer blurb was the key to the rise of the modern version of demagoguery that Patricia Roberts-Miller discovered. Was there any difference in McCarthy and Eisenhower? Enough to send one into ruin and the other into the Oval Office. The first acted alone, the second was joined by his Vice-President, Richard M. Nixon of California.
     Case Two: The “Intentional” Demagogue. “ In early May, 1952,” Halberstam wrote in The Fifties, “Nixon was invited to speak at the annual fundraiser in New York.” (367) Halberstam noted in the earlier chapters how Nixon was a powerful anti-Communist advocate responsible for squeezing a guilty verdict out of the elusive Alger Hiss, a rather “accidental” spy, convicted on perjury more than his actual espionage activities. Up through the ranks gradually until he was selected to become Ike’s running mate, Nixon was the epitome of the likeable demagogue, a fierce debater and eventually cutting his teeth from setbacks during the ‘52 campaign. Faced with some illegal slush fund activities, Nixon learned how to be hard, to be deceptive, to use television in his rise to power. Just before the election, the candidate went national to clear his name;
     “He knew exactly how he wanted to portray himself: as the ordinary American, like so many other veterans back from World War Two, just starting out in life, more than a little modest about his service to his country.” (417)
     According to Halberstam, Nixon’s wife went on the air with him, “She was his only prop.” The thirty minute speech cleared him and Nixon stayed on the ticket all the way to victory. But some suggested that;
     “There was something more than a little unsavory about the entire episode: the self pity, the willingness to use wife, children, and dog.” (420)
     Senator McCarthy never could be found guilty of those kinds of charges. He was a drinker, an alcoholic, certainly not a Quaker. He didn’t have to tell the truth, he had a persona that made everyone believe everything he said about the Communists whether it was true or not. Nixon had to painstakingly call out Hiss on his Party connections; McCarthy had only to produce a laundry ticket out of his coat pocket to persuade the audience, the difference between the “intentional” and “accidental” demagogue.
Patricia Roberts-Miller, in her book, Demagoguery and Democracy, notes some of the basic premises of traditional identification of the political despot, in particular playing the partisan card, inclusion, fairness, polarity, to name a few. That never bothered Senator McCarthy, his persona carried him throughout his career right up until the end. In Chapter Two, Roberts-Miller defines the traditional definition of the demagogue;
     “Is what the person saying obviously false? Is the person bad? Is the person appealing to populist notions? Is the person being manipulative?” (Roberts-Miller, epub, 21) McCarthy was guilty on all four counts but it didn’t seem to bother him or his audience. Not any more than a carnie barker would talk a customer into getting on the rickety roller coaster that just flew off the tracks yesterday. Nixon was more careful, a skilled debater and a polished congressman who had won legitimate trophies as a senator. His style was worlds apart from McCarthy’s. It is inconclusive following a close reading if Roberts-Miller mentions either McCarthy or Nixon in Demagoguery and Democracy. Perhaps because it is easier to define her revisionist method using extreme cases instead of shades, of variations, of degrees, as in the case of the two politicians McCarthy and Nixon.
     In Chapter Three, Roberts-Miller introduces her own dynamics of the demagogue; “polarizes a complicated political situation into us...and them; those who are with us and those who are against us; situation of the in-group; Truth is easy to perceive and convey; fallacy; not necessarily emotional or vehement.” (epub, 35)
     Roberts-Miller does in fact refer to the role of tradition in demagoguery;
     “Equating ‘what I think of as traditional’ with ‘what has a long history’ is one of the ways that demagoguery often relies on a ‘universalized nostalgia’.” (epub, 47) Roberts-Miller cites Max Weber’s leadership powers of “traditional, legal and charismatic.” (epub, 59) Roberts-Miller’s proposals in Chapter Eight on how to prevent or stop demagoguery does not completely address the complicated variations and nature of the rhetorical aberration. With respect to her proposal of “shaming media outlets,” in both cases of McCarthy and Nixon, the news followed the senators around, inventing and reinventing their persona, elevating them to the superhuman leaders she mentions in Chapter Four. (epub, 59) Even then, the media was by traditional standards of demagoguery just following the rules, especially the one of populist notions.      There appears a clash of ideals between traditional and modernist-revisionist of “obviously false” and “truth is easy to perceive.” The threat of Communism was indeed real in The Fifties, according to David Halberstam, even if McCarthy invented lies to condemn it. Nixon didn’t have to prove Hiss was a spy, only that he was lying to Congress.Those were traditional methods that worked for the demagogue. Roberts-Miller insists “these are entirely the wrong questions to ask.”

Part Four: Reflection--- Faced today with ever increasing and even more subtle means to persuade the individual that there is only one right way to do things, the role of rhetoric should be even more important in everyday life. From misinformation on the internet to shaming groups because of their lifestyles or ethnic backgrounds, the word “commonplace” is becoming less and less common in discourse. Having explored the various techniques that can be employed through situational experiments, there doesn’t appear to be any solid evidence that rhetoric, no matter what shape or form it takes, offers a safe haven for agreement.
     The Foss, Griffin method, though idealistic and certainly feasible, will only work if those engaged are willing to treat others with civility and equality. Certainly it might work in a given situation, but to assume from that success that it can be used across the board is a quantum leap that only someone familiar with the difference between special and general relativity can make. Many of the other methods are equally precariously balanced on an accelerated frame of reference. Is it an absolute, then, to be constantly doppler shifting the premises of the rhetorical situation to allow for all of the unknowns in the equation? Such is the convoluted nature of the method. It falls into the category of circular reasoning where tautology ultimately rescues the rhetor from redundancy. 

     Rhetoric as an algorithm that if repeated enough, adjusted, modernized, revised and theorized, falls victim to its own fallacy of repetition. Even with these inconsistencies and shortcomings, rhetoric is still the most valuable tool in the language toolbox to get to the truth.
     Without making all the adjustments for time and space, for kairos to decide if it's worth talking about at all, to be willing to even listen to the other side at all, as proposed from Rogerian to Foss, Griffin logic, is the first most difficult step to take. For the demagogue McCarthy, he stubbornly refused to listen which made it easy for his in-group to follow its superhuman leader blindly. Certainly the threat of Communism in The Fifties was real; the Russians, through the help of spies like Hiss were able to get secrets to the bomb. Nixon rose to the rank of vice-president because of his ability to overlook the evidence in favor of the credibility of the accused. Hiss refused to take a lie-detector test; Nixon used that, not evidence, to exact his guilty verdict. (Halberstam, 21) 

     Nixon was a demagogue for all of the wrong reasons set forth by Roberts-Miller, he was a demagogue nonetheless. On the ground in the Horn of Africa today, the Ethiopian army grinds its way toward the breakaway state capital, burning villages in its path, sending tens of thousands of refugees with only the clothes on their backs streaming into overcrowded Sudanese camps. Dialogue between the two warring factions is futile. The Ethiopian defense minister calls it an “internal” affair even though Sudan is now hosting upwards of 100,0000 “ internally displaced persons,” now displaced externally. Neighboring Eritrea has offered the Addis Ababa regime support to crush the common enemy in violation of United Nations mandates involving the use of external forces in an internal dispute. Any number of Chua’s tribalism concepts can be cited in this conflict; “Especially in societies where people fear for their safety or some struggle just to survive, idealistic principles will often ring hollow-and in any case have a hard time competing with appeals to more primordial group passions. Universal brotherhood is incompatible with gross inequality. “ (Chua, 8)
     The refugees in many of the African nations, the people themselves, have been struggling to survive their entire lives. There is a gaping chasm of credibility that on the one hand, explores rhetorical situations in an antiseptic democratic environment of how things should be; on the other hand, the brutal reality of demagoguery and despotism that crushes the individual under the tread of a tank. Only the loser seeks out mediation.
     Halberstam candidly pointed out the success of Mickey Spillane and his private-detective hero Mike Hammer. Bombarded by critics who criticized Spillane’s tough guy paperback fiction, calling the author “dangerous, paranoid and masochist,” Spilane replied, referring to the literary world and second-rate writers as Losers;
     “The guys who didn’t make it, the guys that nobody ever heard of...these articles are usually written by Losers--frustrated writers. And these writers resent success. So naturally they never have anything to say about the Winners.” When asked if it was hard to be a winner, Spillane replied;
     “Anybody can be a Winner--all you have to do is make sure you’re not a Loser.” (105) The internet was nothing more than a few Compuserve discussion boards when Foss, Griffin introduced Invitational Rhetoric to the world. 

     A few years prior to that, in 1991, I had hooked up a phone line to a printer and called the Wall Street Journal to subscribe to a newswire they offered at an unreasonable price. It was wired in a Reno garage stuffed full of every known artifact and provided access to by a friend who employed me at his Tahoe resort. The printer had continuous teletype feed paper on it so when a story broke, it automatically typed out the incoming press releases. 

     Two friends of mine arrived from Berkeley one night, one of them who had graduated with a degree in rhetoric and went on to get his Cal Bar license. We were standing there talking when the phone line rang and the teletype started sending out a string of reports. It was January 17, Operation Desert Shield was replaced by Operation Desert Storm. The teletype reported that Iraq’s air force had been destroyed on the ground by coalition forces. My friends were absolutely dumbfounded, not from the failed negotiations to get Hussein out of Kuwait. They were amazed at the teletype system I had set up with a thrift shop printer in a garage full of dust, cobwebs and a vintage Mercedes Benz under a tarp. 

     Rhetoric had failed in Iraq, but my printer succeeded.

References 

 Foss, S., Griffin, C., “Beyond Persuasion, A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric,” Communications Monographs, Volume 62, March 1995.
Blog Posts: #KENOSHA 53143-- Suspending Disbelief &--MYTH OF “FAR-LEFT”,
Eyeless on Campus: #KENOSHA 53143-- Suspending Disbelief &--MYTH OF "FAR-LEFT"--- #SOLDIERS-- "Suckers," "Losers," "Misfits" & -- SUICIDAL DRUNKS
Eyeless on Campus: #SOLDIERS-- "Suckers," "Losers," "Misfits" & -- SUICIDAL DRUNKS
Ratcliffe, K., Rhetorical Listening, 2005, So, Illinois U Press, Web Campus
Reuters Staff, “Ethiopia rejects African mediation, pushes toward rebel-held Tigray capital,” Ethiopia rejects African mediation, pushes toward rebel-held Tigray capital | Reuters
Roberts-Miller, P., Demagoguery and Democracy, The Experiment, 2017, New York. Halberstam, D., The Fifties, Random House, 1993, New York
Chua, A., Political Tribes, (Readings, Web Campus)

ENG497B--The Women of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer--U OF NEVADA SPRING 2020

ENG497B.1001
James L’Angelle
University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. G. Escobar
11 May 2020

The Women of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer

     Sophia occupies the mind of Hiram throughout the novel. He just can't seem to escape the spell she has over him. Even with his new life as a freedman, an agent for the Underground Railroad and the use of his special power known as "conduction," Sophia is still Hiram's obsession. But there are other women who influence this runaway slave, several of whom, although they are not romantically woven into the fabric of the story, nonetheless, play an integral part in Hiram's life.
     Having lost his mother Rose in a trade early on when she was spirited off to Natchez, bound by slave merchants, she is transfixed in his mind and is central to the power of conduction, which only really works when he conjures up those strong memories of her. Hiram is raised by Thena;
     "She was not a warm woman, Thena, this other mother of mine. There was a general belief that if she wasn’t cursing you or shooing you off, she might, at least, have a good feeling for you." (Coates, 70)
     Persuaded by Sophia to fulfill his desire to escape the Virginia plantation where he is the illegitimate son of the owner, Hiram is captured along with her and separated. His longing for Sophia is soon to be placed on hold when, following another escape, he becomes the primary subject under the tutelage of the white radical abolitionist Corrine Quinn. As time passes, Hiram’s attitude toward Corrine hardens into a suspicion of her motives;
     “Corrine Quinn was among the most fanatical agents I ever encountered on the Underground. All of these fanatics were white. They took slavery as a personal insult or affront, a stain upon their name...Slavery humiliated them, because it offended a basic sense of goodness that they believed themselves to possess... They scorned their barbaric brethren, but they were brethren all the same. So their opposition was a kind of vanity, a hatred of slavery that far outranked any love of the slave.” (370-371) Not all of the abolitionists had that double consciousness toward slavery and the slave, as Hiram discovers when he is shanghaied out of Philadelphia by slave catchers and rescued by his double-agent mentor Micajah Bland, a.k.a. “Mr. Fields.”      He is introduced to a mythical conductress;
     “...she had become so beloved and famed for fantastic exploits that the coloreds of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York had given her the name Moses.” (170)
     Later on, her real name, Harriet, is revealed along with many of her traits, a singular one being, as a freed slave herself, she didn’t take orders from the abolitionist hierarchy. Throughout his journey from the plantation to Philadelphia and his return as an agent for the underground, Hiram cannot escape his desire for Sophia. Following his initial capture, he even suspects her as part of the plot for his betrayal;
“Maybe Sophia was in on it. Perhaps Thena had warned them. Maybe they were all sitting up somewhere, laughing with Corrine Quinn, laughing with my father even, at my foolish dreams of freedom.” (128)
     Hiram wasn’t outed by Sophia, nor by Thena and certainly not by the legendary Moses. As for Corrine, her motives were quite noble, even with her double standard of anti-slavery that may not have had much concern for the individual slave. Her rather shameful hypocrisy can be seen in her criticism of Hiram’s desire to free Thena;
     “Thena was of such an age that the Virginia Underground would likely oppose her rescue, for it was felt that a life of freedom should first be given to those able to make the most use of it.” (311)
Freedom for the slave in Corrine’s mind only applied to those who were young and could benefit by a long life following their escape from the “coffin.” For her, the underground railroad began with liberation but ended with ageism. It was no wonder that Hiram, the conductor, didn’t completely submit to the organization and eventually returned to his master’s plantation in search of his ultimate desire, Sophia. By then, however, even she had tasted water from the vase of freedom and wasn’t interested in Hiram as her next master.
     There were other women in The Water Dancer, none with the immediate hold of Sophia over Hiram. Surely his mother was a strong influence, but only in memory and related to his unique power. Reference to Santi Bess, Hiram’s grandmother, also had the power of conduction but is yet another distant memory. In the end it is Hiram who has to fulfill his destiny alone.

Source 

Coates, T-N, The Water Dancer, One World, NY, 2019

SWIMMING TO LOS ANGELES-- Upload & More Upload--

 

28 July 2023--  

USPTO--1330PDT:

     The process for filing a trademark extension was straightforward and manageable. The most convenient part of the sequence of pages was not to change anything if not necessary, which many times in a long application can create errors that cannot be corrected. Just a matter of hitting the continue button unless flagged, which did not happen. Beyond the submission and payment, the pdf download is very useful to keep track of where the extension is going for the next required steps. Thank you for making the extension process understood without having to take additional measures. 

LAKE SWIM--0730PDT:

     As for the incredibly complicated process to get a 1 minute--involving just about ever editing item available: 3D Paint, Paint, Drive to download files, MS Video Editor, MS Clipchamp and was using Audacity to convert the MP3 recordings to .WAV, but that's now over with as going through the 3rd-part scammers is history, extinct.Originally, the project was to use cover songs through distributors to pay-per-stream/download but not only not cot effective, but unrealistic. A decision had to be made whether to sell at those sites and make $5 a year or just go ahead and upload for access by the public, the latter is the best approach. The reason is simple: all the other approaches eventually lead to a jinxed system, crashing, unavailable, and the opportunity to break the internet. Forget thousands of views, it's the system that needs develped more, and that's the strategy now. Theinternety has turned to the method of choice for swindlers and crooks, making promises that amount to nothing at best, legal troubles at worst, neither is acceptable. Aimed to extort money from socially immoble obscure artists, seeking to earn a place in the talent hierarchy that's loaded against them, the process turnms to perfecting the best approach, and not necessarily the content itself.

     Since thee is already availability of MP3 files, most of which are 2-3 minutes in length, the first part of the new system is to edit them down to one minute. For that matter, the old MP4 files that took forever to develop, can also be used by separating the audio from the video. A number of various programs, online, are available to edit the files down, but MS Clipchamp provides many of the poor-man functions that are available through yet another exorbitant, scammer promising to do all of that for a cost, monthly, with a contract that has to be paid in full if the decision is made to back out of the deal. Limits may be set on the free programs, as is the case for the number of Youtube uploads allowed in a 24-hour period.

27 July 2023  

UPLOAD & MORE UPLOAD--

     Back to Youtube, all the other venues, distributors are scams--pay $30K for 250K streams-downloads, and at a penny return for most of the swinefurt distributor sites, after going through the 3rd-party fee of $100, is $1000. Just places to send the money with aphony agenda. What's revealng about the cover son scam biz is that uploading the same cover song to Youtube, there's a check to see if there's a copyright infringement. In most cases, there isn't; so where's the so-called royalty fees going? Into the pockets of the third-party scammers.

     A visit to the Barnes & Noble self-publishing site resulted in the deletion of all those old stories, sripts that never sold one download. Jinxed. New material needs to be constantly added and the price see a radical drop from $10 a download, to $1. That will happen in due time. 

     The initial uploads to Youtube was with the basic system of two files to Tunes to Tube, which leaves a watermark, but converts a single cover image and an audio file to an MP4; which is then uploade to the channel. That method was soon abandoned as it did not take into the aspect ratio of the innovative method that now exists on the video platform, of "shorts." These are under 1 minute in length and, at first there appeared to be a megabyte limit on the upload, but recently, greater MBs have been uploaded to shorts with success.

     Continue with content: Youtube, writing, nook e-pub, and online store reopened Shopify, but not necessarilyt o sell, since all of this is in  development, to see what works and what doesn't. 

SWIMMING TO LOS ANGELES--Sous Chef on a Runaway Train--

      At 0600 Pacific Daylight Time, the sun was just barely breaking the horizon line across the ridgeline to the East. The North Shore of Lake Tahoe is fairly quiet on Sunday morning after the long summer holiday week of July 4th. Many of the tourists in the crowd have not yet gotten up and moving and not a single skier is out on the water, even though it is glass. The cheesy tents along the narrow beach at the resort have all been taken down creating an opportunity to rake it and straighten up the chairs. While raking the beach, the events of yesterday were still fresh in memory; from the property owner at the apartment doing his Hitler imitation over the beach gate lock that been jammed by whomever the night before. It could have been any one of the hundreds of inconsiderate beach nazis that took over the North Shore for the week, marching around like SS troops at Stalag 17, pushing, shoving and demanding. That whole business with the fence and gate along the beach was an ill-planned and disastrous project from the beginning, chasing away all the gorgeous ladies in the process, reserving the neighborhood for the jet ski venue which may not even be legal. 

     As the morning progressed at the resort, the Latino maintenance man Juan inquired about some problems with the hot tub. On inspection in the spa room, the heater was found to be completely disassembled and non-functional. The igniter did not engage, the service light was on and there was a distinct leak from the tank indicating it might have a breach in the heat exchanger. Placing a call to MH, the details were forwarded; and in a few short minutes, a hostile text message was received from the manager. She allowed guests to sit in a cold tub, risking any number of problems with chemicals and electrical-fire hazards. The situation deteriorated even further and leaving the property was the only course of action. There may be an opportunity to stay away completely forever. Either way, there are enough other current opportunities locally and in other areas to make it worthwhile to look into them, which is what's being done. 

     One of those was an email the other day from Amtrak regarding a job opening as cook/chef in the Los Angeles zone, which would probably include trains not just running north-south, but west-east. For once, that was followed up on, even before the fireworks at the resort this morning. Yet another job invite was received last week from a long-forgotten inquiry and as a result, an interview was scheduled for early next week. If everyone else wants to march around like Hitler and Mussolini, let them; do not let it cause a loss of focus for opportunities. Too easy would be to overreact, hop in the car, run away like a runaway freight train and accomplish nothing in the process.

     Currently, there is still the cybersecurity class scheduled to begin a week from tomorrow, on the web from UNR. That will be followed by a full schedule in the fall, which is not totally set in stone but subject to change with respect to work. Yet another option is to drop college completely, pay off the student loan and return in five years, after sous cheffing around the country until its paid. What's most significant immediately is that nothing needs to be done. Add to that, the rude text messaging from the resort manager resulted in that being blocked indefinitely; she can pick up the phone and call. As for Hitler at the apartment property, he needs to go find a bunker if he can't take the incoming outside. 

     The hot tub has been a nightmare ever since it was built and installed 20 years ago; the biggest headache on the property, an unbelievable money pit every time the heater blows out, which is like clockwork around July 04 every year. It went out again last week, right on schedule. Juan swapped out the spa heater for the one on the pool, but the pool had been undergoing major repairs since last October so there was no way to know if that one was in working condition; the core may have been rusted out on that one as well. The more serious issue was that MH didn't know about it and bringing it to his attention to find a solution, resulted in nasty text messages from the manager and accusations of being a "backstabber" just because he was made aware of the problem, in other words, the Mussolini complex.