All posts by Dr. ESP

On Plagiarism

Culture

The Middle East is not the only place subject to proportionate responses to attacks.  The following headline appeared in this morning’s edition of the New York Times.

Wife of Investor Who Pushed for Harvard President’s Exit Accused of Plagiarism

Without looking into the merits of the charge, the first thing that came to mind was a question.  Is it possible any prolific writer could be accused of intellectual theft?  And the Dr. ESP corollary, could I?

Regular readers of this blog know, I certainly make an effort to attribute quotations to the originator.  Additionally, some feedback to my recent book In the National Interest suggests the number of footnotes (over 250), at times, detracted from the pace of the narrative.  Looking back, however, I wonder whether a recent post did involve plagiarism.

My December 29, 2023 post “Word of the Year 2023” included the following sentence about reaction to Nikki Haley’s attempts to clean up her “gaffe” about the cause of the American Civil War.

This response was so ludicrous even Ron DeSantis accused her of trying to whitewash history (after which he vanished in a puff of irony).

As I was drafting the sentence, I self-acknowledged the parenthetical phrase had a ring of familiarity.  So, I Googled several variations of the phrase, the most generic being simply “puff of irony.”  No hits.  In the process, I did learn that many language experts believe “irony” is the most abused word in the English Language.  And that Glenn Burnett and Jeff Devlon wrote a book titled The Ironic Cloud in which they describe irony  as “…a powerful and incompletely understood feature of human dynamics.”

Believing I had satisfied my responsibility for due diligence, I included the passage.  Though there is always that possibility someone (most likely a satirist a la the late Mort Sahl) will contact me and demand I either give the originator credit or delete the phrase from the archived version of the post.  Which I would immediately do, no questions asked.

But what if that individual, instead, went to the New York Times with the story how a blogger masked his own plagiarism in December by posting a subsequent blog about how hard he tries not to steal others’ intellectual property.  If contacted by the Times for comment, I would tell them exactly what I shared above.  Would that be good enough?  When so many people are out for blood, it is hard to stop the flow from even the slightest wound.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Bean Counting

Politics

On New Year’s Eve, I received the following email from my congressman Aaron Bean who just completed his first year in Washington.

This exercise in “Bean counting” might be considered “historic,” if and only if, the role of a U.S. representative was just responding to letters, holding town halls and conducting Zoom conference calls.  Kudos to instances where his office intervened in financial disputes that resulted in positive outcomes for his constituents, but that number represents an average return of $1.28 for each resident of Florida’s 4th congressional district (851,000 according to the 2020 census).

 Even Mr. Bean does not believe this is why he ran for Congress.  When he entered the race in June 2022, he promised to reverse the Democratic policies of Joe Biden’s first two years in office which he claimed stifled economic growth and silenced family values (whatever that means).  His top priorities?

  • Rising inflation.
  • Gas prices that crippled hardworking Americans.
  • Unprotected borders.
  • Loss of respect for law and order.
  • Federal overreach by a government attempting to us that they know what is best.

This is laughable on multiple counts.  How have all the newsletters, meetings, phone calls, etc. impacted a single one of these issues?  More importantly, Mr. Bean does not offer a single piece of legislative enacted during his first “historic” year in Washington that achieved his policy goals.  When it comes to priorities #1 and #2, the U.S. economy continues to grow beyond expectations while inflation this year declined by 67 percent, no thanks to Bean and his GOP colleagues.  (Congressman, can you say Bidenomics?  I know you could.) 

I guess “law and order” does not include following the U.S. Constitution.  Bean voted three times for Jim Jordan and once for Mike Johnson, both of whom remain election deniers despite lack of evidence of any significant voter fraud, to be Speaker of the House.  Not to mention the new definition of the pot calling the kettle black, by someone who decries government overreach, yet fails to speak up about a woman’s right to reproductive health care without having to get the state’s permission.

The Florida 4th deserves better, yet no one has stepped up to prosecute the case against the incumbent’s inaction.  What are the local Democratic Party Committees doing to recruit a candidate?  Taking on Aaron Bean is an uphill fight in a district with a 3:1 Republican registration.  However, if there is not an opposing voice to challenge him on his performance to date, voters will never learn why it is not good enough.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

The Road to Hell

Politics

Dr. ESP, this is the third post in a row referencing Nikki Haley.  And not in a positive light.  Are you afraid she really could win the election in November if she is the GOP nominee?

~Imaginary Subscriber

Dear Imaginary, thank you for your question.  In the tradition of my people, I will answer your question with a question.  Are you suggesting I share the Biden campaign’s assessment the best hope of victory in the 2024 contest is a rematch between the incumbent and Donald Trump?  If so, the answer is absolutely NOT.  I am pulling for Haley, knowing that Trump will not take a defeat lying down.  He will either run as an independent, start a write-in campaign or preemptively declare Haley cannot win and urge his voters to stay home (just to prove himself right).  He has to somehow stay in the race if he wants to continue arguing his indictments, trials and likely convictions are politically motivated.

Consider the following.  Every protest Trump vote will be one less for Haley.  Abraham Lincoln could not survive a defection of 15 to 30 percent of expected Republican ballots.  And imagine the chaos if down-ballot Republicans have to pick sides.  The civil war within the party will go from tepid to ultra-thermal overnight ensuring a Democratic house and senate in 2025.

So count me among the cheerleaders hoping Haley wins the nomination, but here is why she will not.  She may be the only person in America who could give Donald Trump an opportunity to tell the truth for once.  It began when a nine-year-old boy in Iowa asked Haley how her position on Trump could “flip-flop” so often in eight years.  Once accused of straddling the fence, the best way to make it stick is to provide more examples.  It did not take long.

During the second Republican debate, Haley proposed eliminating the federal gas tax.  On December 30, the Trump campaign released a statement citing Haley’s “troublesome record” when it came to an increase in the South Carolina gas tax during her governorship.  “She pushed for a WHOPPING 60% increase in the state gas tax in South Carolina after promising voters she would never do so.” In essence, Trump was asking potential Haley voters, “She reneged on a promise once before.  Why would you believe she won’t do it again?”

But the back story about the financing of South Carolina highways eclipses the current fray over any inconsistent messaging.  If you have ever driven through South Carolina on I-95, you notice gas prices are considerably lower than in the states to its north and south.  However, you also observe something else.  South Carolina is the only one of the three immediate states and most of the others along I-95 that is limited to two-lanes in each direction.  And maintenance is spotty at best.  Don’t take my word for it.  A May 2023 article by Forbes contributor Gary Stoller included the following on-line testimonials.

FITSNews: Traveling from Georgia, the highway narrows from six lanes to four lanes — with rusty guardrails flanking the roadside. Trash is everywhere, greeting visiting motorists as they pass through a 1990s-era stucco display that might as well be the entrance to a drug kingpin’s barn — or a trailer park…Worst of all is the pavement which resembles an Afghan airstrip following a sustained bombing barrage.

REDDIT: Seriously, just did Boston to Miami and then back, and the stretch through South Carolina feels like driving in a Third World country. What gives?

Therefore, the question is not whether Haley promises to eliminate the federal gas tax and then does not?  The issue is whether she is promising she will make the entire U.S. interstate system emulate South Carolina’s share of it.  Maybe it is a plank in her “bring down inflation now” campaign.  Except it will more likely apply to shredded tires than to the price of consumer goods and services.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Haley’s Comment

Politics

[BLOGGER’S NOTE:  On the Deprogramming101 home page, I warn readers not to take everything I write as gospel.  Today’s post is one for which I urge everyone to take that advice.]

In the runup to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the contenders for the Republican nomination for president have uttered words one would never expect from an individual seeking the highest office in the land.  However, Wednesday night, the unexpected took a hard turn to the left when former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley declared the South fought the Civil War to protect a woman’s choice when it comes to her reproductive health and LGBTQ+ rights..

I know, she did not use those exact words, but what else could she possibly mean when her response to the question, “What caused the American Civil War,” was the following.

I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,  It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.

To emphatically declare “government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life” must have been music to the ears of Americans who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.  If only there were paintings of the South Carolina confederate brigade being led into battle behind a flagbearer holding a rainbow version of the “Stars and Bars” to validate Ms. Haley’s assertion.  Imagine she had used her tenure as governor to educate Palmetto State citizens how their ancestors took up arms to ensure every South Carolinian could enjoy the same rights and privileges regardless of their sexual orientation.  One can even envision the Daughters of the Confederacy and SC United for Justice & Equality, a Charleston-based coalition of LGBTQ+ advocates, coming together to oppose removal of statues of Civil War generals and soldiers who gave their lives for gender equality.

Furthermore, has there ever been a more forceful argument for a woman’s right to choose, than Haley’s declaration, “They [government] don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do.”  But she did not stop there, doubling down by adding, “They don’t need to be part of your life.”  One has to assume that includes judges, politicians and (in Texas) anti-abortion bounty hunters having a seat at the table during a patient’s consultation with her physician.  Women, and the men who love them, living in states where legislatures dominated by old, white males enacted laws limiting reproductive choice, greeted Haley’s change of heart with a rousing chorus of “hosannas.”

Rumor has it (not really) Christian F. Nunes, president of the National Organization of Women, was preparing a statement welcoming Haley into the “sisterhood.”  However, before she could deliver her remarks, Haley realized she now faced a “Hobson’s Choice,” defined by Merriam-Webster as “the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectional alternatives.”  Based on an overnight analysis of GOP polling data that would make a sabermetrician blush, Haley picked her poison.  Turns out, MAGA World is more offended by her echoing the words of pro-choice and LGBTQ+ advocates than they are by acknowledging slavery’s role in the Civil War.  Less than 12 hours following her New Hampshire trial by fire, Haley had a second change of heart.  During a Thursday morning radio interview, the penitent candidate declared, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”  Welcome back to Earth One.

Her flip-flopping did not go unappreciated.  I hear (again, not really) the owner of Waffle House #233 at 2229 Savannah Highway in Charleston, South Carolina has roped off a counter-side table perpetually reserved for the former governor.  And if this presidential thing does not pan out for her, he hopes she will become the establishment’s official spokesperson.

[NOTE: For an excellent, non-fictional assessment of Nikki Haley’s 24 hours in what some are calling her introduction to the “GOP Thunderdome,” check out Politico senior columnist Matt Lewis’ op-ed, “Nikki Haley’s Slavery Gaffe Shows How Scared She Is of MAGA Republicans.“]

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Word of the Year 2023

Culture

On December 15, Dictionary.com selected “hallucinate” as its Word of the Year 2023.  It is not the word I would have chosen, even considering their focus on hallucination’s relevance to artificial intelligence.  Below is the official announcement.

The definition strikes me as an inaccurate description of both “hallucinating” and “artificial intelligence.”  If they intended to show how information can be mangled, or even corrupted, to make a non-factual observation, based on their own definitions, a better choice would have been the following.

CONTEXT

noun

  1. the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect.
  2. the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.

SOURCE: Dictionary.com

If we learned anything at all during this off-year political conversation, it is the adage “context is everything” no longer applies.  Today, the more apt lesson is, “If you need context to explain any declaration, you have already lost the argument.”  Just ask the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania.

I should have learned this lesson in 1978, when, as director of development planning at the Maryland Department of Economic and Community Development, my team drafted a development policy agenda titled, “A Five-Part Strategy for the Maryland Marketplace.”  The tag line?  “Maryland, Close to What Counts.”  The document laid out the context for this phrase including the state’s proximity to every major East Coast population center, the Nation’s capital, its shipping access via the Chesapeake Bay and the port of Baltimore, etc.  Within weeks, the Delaware economic development agency launched a new campaign.  “Delaware, What Counts.”  They might as well have added, “Maryland, Close but No Cigar!”

While I hopefully did not continue to make that same mistake, others have been less fortunate.  During the 2023 election cycle, voters in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia told the GOP leadership and pro-life advocates, “If you have to explain why government should intervene in decisions about reproductive health, take your message elsewhere.”  In contrast, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat in a deep red state, won re-election based on a campaign ad in which the now 21 year-old victim asks, “Should a 12 year-old, who has been raped by her stepfather, have to bring his baby to term?”  Game, set, match.  No context needed.

Wednesday night, Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley, at a rally in New Hampshire, ripped the award for “worst answer of the year” from the hands of the three university presidents who wilted during the House Education Committee hearing on anti-Semitism on college campuses.  When asked, “What caused the American Civil War,” she pontificated about the role of government, individual freedom and capitalism.  She did not mention the word “slavery,” to which the questioner replied, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery.”  In the video you see Haley hesitate, wondering how to put her response in context.  Lesson #2.  Do not expect, much less ask, those who disagree with you to provide the context in which to explain your position.  Haley responded, “What do you want me to say about slavery?”  In other words, in what context do you want or expect me to talk about slavery?  This response was so ludicrous even Ron DeSantis accused her of trying to whitewash history (after which he vanished in a puff of irony).

Politics and academia are not the sole arenas in which context is used to mask the more obvious reason for any action.  During the holidays, my son-in-law gave me a book by Bruce Schoenfeld titled Game of Edges.  The subtitle reads, “The Analytics Revolution and the Future of Professional Sports.”  A central theme focuses on team ownership and how it has morphed from a hobby of the rich and famous into the most successful investment in their portfolios.  The gift’s relevance was affirmed when the Los Angeles Dodgers spent over one billion dollars to sign two players:  Shohei Ohtani ($750 million over ten years) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million over 12 years).

It begs the obvious question about return on this record breaking outlay.  “Will their presence on the Dodgers’ roster generate enough revenue to justify their inflated salaries?”  Sports journalists provided an array of answers about TV contracts, merchandise royalties and income from other activities associated with the team.  Although, I doubt Nobel laureate John Nash could calculate how many #17 and #18 jerseys (Ohtani and Yamamoto, respectively) you need to sell to raise a billion dollars. Schoenfeld suggests such financial gymnastics are unnecessary.  There is a simple answer.  Guggenheim Baseball Management (GBM), headed by majority owner Mark Walter, purchased the Dodgers in 2011 for $2.15 billion dollars.  If sold today, the buyers would pay an estimated minimum of $4.25 billion.  GBM and Walter would recover their investment with a billion dollars to spare.

As we approach 2024, the question for the Biden campaign is whether they have learned the lesson.  Yes, Bidenomics has been successful.  The post-pandemic American economy is the envy of the industrialized world.  Lower inflation.  Higher GDP.  Most job growth in a presidential term.  Increasing consumer confidence.  Inflation reduced by 67 percent without a recession. But that requires context and a longer attention span than most voters have.  You know what does not.  A box score on any sports web site or on the sports pages of any newspaper.  You immediately know which team won and why.  Therefore I suggest the Biden campaign start purchasing billboards across the country with a series of box scores.  Here are two examples.

21st Century Recessions

Obama/Biden 0
Bush/Trump 2

 

21st Century Job Creation (in millions)

Obama/Biden 26.147
Bush/Trump -2.14

 

Let the GOP fumble with the context.

POSTSCRIPT: 2024 Word of the Year

Will journalists, academics and politicians continue to invoke the word “context” in the coming year?  I, for one, hope so.  Although it may take on new significance, requiring  one more definitional variation.

CONTEXT

noun

~a Donald Trump post on social media.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP