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the spouting of an exasperated man
QuixtarWithin the past week, I have been propositioned to attend two business presentations, ostensibly to show me a revolutionary business opportunity that will yield me perpetual residual income. Perhaps a little background is in order. I recently interviewed with the IT Manager of a corporate training outfit (I use "training" loosely here, but let's just say...). He called me a week later to inform me that though he was thoroughly impressed with my technical skills and business acumen, he had decided to pursue a "more qualified" candidate. Would I, however, be interested in talking to a friend of his who is currently expanding his "e-commerce business" and looking for smart, driven people like me, he asked? Of couse I would, I responded, though suspicious of this new development. It turned out that our IT Manager's friend was an aggressive Quixtar footman who had attempted (without success) to convert me into the multi-level marketing fold about a year ago. What's more, this guy holds a day job that is both lucreative and prestigious. My response, of course, was decisive: I declined the proposition. The other encounter with Quixtar began when I meet a delightful lady at a social event I attended about two weeks ago. We had a lively conversation, in which I disclosed that I was a final year Information and Decision Sciences student at UIC. Ah! Information sciences is exactly what her husband does, she exclaimed rapturously. Apparently, her husband develops Websites. Would I give her my phone number so that she could have her husband call me? Of course I would, I responded, again suspicious of this new development. Fast forward two weeks later; our delightful lady calls me, engages me in small talk, and then lays it out: Would I be in a position to attend a business presentation next week? My response, of course, is decisive: I declined the proposition. It is not my objective to expound on Quixtar's modus operandi (I'm sure such information abound on the Internet). But I have one question: why are so many people so passionately engrossed in this Quixtar thing? PostscriptI get a sense that this entry raises a few questions, like, for instance, why I am fundamentally averse to attending Quixtar's business presentations? Well, I have attended business presentations (dotplanet/zillionaire.com, storesonline, etc.) and would have lost $3000 in one instance! My position on this thing is pretty defined (though not irrevocable): There are a number of ways to make money (let's ignore inheritance, winning the lottery, etc.):
But then again, pursuing what I consider frivolous schemes like Quixtar's model in hopes of someday striking it rich might be another option. Will some people make a lot of money from Quixtar? Perhaps. Will a lot of people waste their friggin' time? You bet'cha. 27 March 2005 On Language VII: The Death of the Word “are”American English is like pidgin-English in the sense that it appears one cannot make grammatical errors in either. Actually, this isn't quite true. One cannot make grammatical errors in pidgin-English because pidgin-English is, by its very nature, a bastardization1 of the English language. Succintly, there are no real (grammatical) rules binding pidgin-English; effective communication in pidgin-English is as much a function of contextual clues, gesticulations, intonation, and subtle naunces and non-verbal cues, as it is a function of the components of the language itself. On the other hand, one cannot make grammatical errors in American English because... in America, everything goes. It does not take a Ph.D. in the language to observe that the everyday American English is but a carcass of the English language2. Specifically though, I am motivated to make this entry because for the umpteenth time, I hear the singular verb “is” being used with respect to a plural noun, thus:
And this was said on morning television, no less. I have heard newscasters, politicians, university lecturers and professors, industry professionals, and Hollywood actors and actresses consistently use the singular verb “is” with respect to plural nouns, and every time two things happen: (1) I cringe, and (2) my regard for the American intellect diminishes slightly. I find even more disconcerting, the fact that nobody appears to as much as bat an eyelid when such a fundamental, yet egregious, grammatical error is made in the public sphere. Well, I might very well be wasting my time, because as everybody knows, America is the leader of the world, and the veritable trendsetter for all things progressive. Perhaps, these times mark the beginning of the death of the word “are,” and the beginning of a new era in which we may use words as we please, even in serious political and intellectual discourse. 09 November 2004 Rejoinder1 I do not entirely agree (with myself) that pidgin-English is a "bastardization" of the English language. Language, by its very essence, is a vehicle for conveying ideas; language is subject to the people who use it, not the other way around. If a people take a language that is imposed on them by imperialists and concoct a whole new language, call that anything, but "bastardization," please. 2For similars reasons, I now disagree that "American English is but a carcass of the English language." In fact, I concede that I made spurious generalizations in this write up, but am not persuaded to altogether remove the entry. 27 June 2005 Superstitious Beliefs & FaithWhile I have always been aware of my superstitious “beliefs,” I have never felt compelled to contend with them, or to even give them more than a fleeting thought. To be sure, I do not really believe any of them to bear any correlation to reality, so that the term “superstitious belief” is actually a misnomer in my case. However, though I do not believe any of them to be true, I continue to hold on to them. I was a church-goer for a while, but, of course, my reasons for going to church were far from benign. I went, variously, because I didn’t want to upset the temporal powers-that-be, because I had forged friendships, and even an intimate relationship I was unwilling to relinquish, and because I was simply a veritable hypocrite. I call myself a hypocrite because I pretended to accept Christianity when I was at odds with its major tenets. The question is this: Are my obstinately-held superstitious beliefs that much different from my past Christians pretentions, and especially that thing called faith? Don’t both superstition and faith have the same basic configuration in that I have misgivings about the truth and/or validity of both, but yet pretend(ed) to believe them? Doesn't faith, like superstition, call us to believe things, even in the face of contradictory evidence? Isn’t faith akin to superstition in the end? It is instructive to note that the beliefs that are now branded superstitious were once religious. This rant also takes the form of a Journal entry with an interesting postscript. 11 July 2004 Tech Rant: Yahoo! Mail is, well, dumbYou know that very sensible Yahoo! Mail feature that recognizes the first time a person sends you an e-mail (from a particular e-mail address), and suggests that you store the persons address, as well as their name, and if you wanted to go all the way, their street address, telephone number, birthday, and dog's name? Well, if the person happens to be a fellow Yahoo! Mail user, shouldn't Yahoo! Mail be smart enough to auto-populate the relevant fields with the person's information? Well, technology is a process, (dang, I've never heard that said before), and I'm pretty sure the folks at Yahoo! will catch up to this simplicity. Eventually. 18 June 2004 PostscriptIt turns out that Yahoo! Mail has this feature. The question, though, is whether they implemented it before or after this rant. It'll be interesting to know whether this rant had anything to do with the implementation. I doubt it though. 08 December 2005 Huh? Come AgainI was hoping to catch at least the second half of Tim Russert's Sunday weekly, Meet the Press. I flipped the channels from 2 through 50, and returned to 5. I pushed the Channel Up button one more time and landed on Channel 7. A male quartet was doing a gospel number that I found compelling, so I stopped. I listened. And I was inspired. Next came a lady that was introduced as [I forget her first name] Armstrong. I gathered from the presenter that she is the daughter of the celebrated Louis Armstrong (though I do not altogether preclude the possibility of my having made the wrong association here... I'd been awake for all of about three minutes). Anyway, the exact wording of a portion of her song is faithfully reproduced below (except the words in paranthesis, added to enhance readability): Don't believe all you see I might be just overly critical, but isn't her rhetoric counter-productive? 13 June 2004 Writing, Mario's Girl "Creeping," & P. Diddy RappingOn the drive to school this morning, I listened for the umpteenth time to Mario Winan (one of Puff Daddy's newer protégés) croon that he doesn't want to know if his girlfriend's cheating, and that if she were "creeping," she shouldn't let it show, because his "heart can't take it anymore..." Then, Puff Daddy obligatorily injects a few lines of quasi-rap. Resisting the urge to twirl the dial, I listen to Diddy finish with, ...now its time you invest in me or something along those lines. I come to one very strong conclusion: while Sean Combs is good at many other things, he is such a bad rapper that he might quite possibly be the worst rapper on the face of the earth today. 27 April 2004 PostscriptI should downgrade my assertion to: ...[Sean Combs] might quite possibly be one of the worst rappers on the face of the earth today. I have since writing the rant heard rap that suck on a higher order than Puffy's. 08 June 2004 Double SpeakThe juxtaposition of the two bumper stickers on the car in front of me might just evoke from you the same response it evoked from me. Bumper Sticker #1: READ! Quran 96: 1, 3 Bumper Sticker #2: No Compulsion in Islam 01 March 2004 PDA or DPA?Isn’t a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) more correctly a DPA (Digital Personal Assistant)? Isn’t the device more of a personal assistant that is digital than a digital assistant that is personal? Think about it: the device is first and foremost a personal assistant—it only happens to be a digital variant of personal assistants; hence a digital personal assistant; a DPA. I propose then, that we start calling them Digital Personal Assistants (DPAs), rather than Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Actually, I favor Electronic Personal Assistant (EPA) over Digital Personal Assistant… …But then, perhaps, this whole argument is a patently futile endeavor. 23 September 2003 On Language, VI: Copyrighted, Ma'amThe past tense of copyright is copyrighted, not copywritten. Somebody actually advised that I have my poems copywritten. While I appreciate her advice to protect my intellectual property, I thought her malapropism was egregious enough to warrant a rant. 10 August 2003 Postscript:And while we are on the matter of malapropisms, to carry on a conversation is to converse, not conversate. (Isn't it?) 13 August 2003 Christopher Columbus: Discoverer of America?I am beginning to find the adulation of Christopher Columbus as “the discoverer of America” quite exasperating. Yes, from the perception of the 15th century European, he did “discover” America, but from contemporary man’s vantage perspective, and within an objective historical context, Christopher Columbus is no more than the first known* European to reach America. The “objective historical context” of which I speak (or write, as the case is) requires us to acknowledge, in the sincerest sense of the word, that there were people in America before the arrival of Columbus; people whose forebears were (and are), accurately, the discoverers of America. My point, summarized, is that Christopher Columbus is not the discoverer of America; he [was] merely the first known* European to reach the continent; no more, no less. But of course, in a world whose recorded history is largely Eurocentric, my argument might be very well preposterous. 07 August 2003 Postscript:* It turns out that Christopher Columbus is, in fact, (decidedly) not the first known European to reach America. Strong archaeological evidence credits the Norse, or Vikings, a people who came from Scandinavia, as the first Europeans to reach America. Specifically, Leif Ericsson and some 35 Vikings explored the coast of Labrador and stayed the winter in what is now Newfoundland in 1001 -- 491 years before Columbus reached the continent. They would have very well founded colonies -- indeed they tried to -- if they hadn't been outnumbered and overwhelmed by Native Americans. So, here are the contenders for the title of "discoverer of America":
Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian sailing under the Spanish flag, realized Columbus' mistake while exploring the coast of South America in 1501: the huge landmass was not a part of Asia. In 1507, a German scholar, Martin Waldseemüller, proposed that the new continent be named America for "Amerigo the discoverer." Reference: 10 August 2003 Post-postscript:There are indications that Columbus was a third-rate seaman at best. 01 March 2004 A Chosen Nation?As I walk to the bus stop on my way to work that morning, I come across two ostensible Jehovah's Witnesses, one tall and lanky, the other short and porky. The taller one, the one in the bowler hat says hello, and starts to talk to me as we walk past each other. I feel obligated to tell him, apologetically, that I really must catch the next Division Street bus. Oh well then, would I accept this booklet and read it at my leisure, the evangelist asks. Sure, I reply, taking the booklet from him. As I hurry towards Division Street, I flip the cover page, and begin to read: The book of Genesis is the first book in the Bible. It is the foundation for both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "Genesis" is a Greek word which means "beginning." The book of Genesis tells of the beginning of many things, including God's plan for the redemption of man and the beginning of God's chosen nation -- Israel -- through which the promised Savior would come... I lose interest. So Israel is God's chosen nation through which the promised Savior would come, eh? And the rest of us are supposed to be exactly excited, right? Postscript:It turned out that the evangelists weren't Jehovah's Witnesses at all. My assumption that they were Jehovah's Witnesses leads me to believe that Jehovah's Witnesses have come to epitomize door-to-door evangelism... The booklet was published by World Missionary Press, Inc., and distributed by Iglesia Gethsemani (Church of Gethsemani, in Spanish), for those who are interested in knowing. 06 August 2003 On Organized Religion and Political CorrectnessIf the Episcopal church believes that homosexuality is a sin, then it should not contemplate ordaining an homosexual as the bishop of one of its dioceses. But the Episcopal church is contemplating ordaining an homosexual as the bishop of one of its diocese. Therefore, the Episcopal church does not believe that homosexuality is a sin. [A deductively valid argument.] Organized religion (the Episcopal church in this case) cannot eat its cake and have it. If homosexuality is a sin, then it must consistently condemn it, and to retain its moral authority (?), refuse to cave in to prevailing "liberal" pressures. By even contemplating ordaining an homosexual as bishop, the message that the Episcopal church sends is (1) homosexuality is no longer a sin, and (2) we (the church) were wrong all along (which is akin to saying, our beliefs [or faith] are not truly divinely inspired). The choice belongs to organized religion, and specifically the Episcopal church: (1) maintain your conservative posture by continuing to condemn homosexuality, and by refusing to compromise on the issue; or (2) cave in to liberalism and say, in effect, that (a) homosexuality is not a sin -- anymore, (b) we were wrong all this time, (c) our beliefs are not divinely inspired (otherwise they would be irrevocable). In the interest of sustaining its already questionable moral authority, protecting itself from an appearance of sheer hypocrisy, and preserving its "divine legitimacy", I would recommend the first option as the more honorable one. Postscript:For the sake of completeness, let it be known that:
03 August 2003 Post-postscriptThe Episcopal church did confirm the ordination of the gay bishop a couple of days after I wrote the rant. This only reaffirms my persuasion that organized religion epitomizes hypocrisy. 06 August 2003 Déjà vuI am standing in the bathroom, drying my hair, when I experience a déjà vu. But because I wasn’t in a very good mood, my response to the ephemeral experience was, so what? So what if I stood here drying my hair in a past life? The paranormal, I mused, are much too over-romanticized. 29 July 2003 On Language, V: Cheat or Cheater?Has the word “cheater” slowly crept into acceptability? I was of the conviction that the correct thing to call one who cheats, is a cheat, not a cheater... But there is even a TV show that goes by (e gad!) Cheaters... 28 July 2003 Potter-maniaA co-worker and I got into a conversation about J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series sometime ago. She was convinced that the series glorifies witchcraft, and hence, was a negative influence on children. I asked her if she had read any of the books, she said no. She wouldn’t read the books either, I imagine, for God forbid that she, herself, is exposed to witchcraft. I argued that the Potter books have succeeded in opening the world of reading to millions of children around the world, and that that outweighed her silly little notion of the books’ affiliation with organized witchcraft. I failed to persuade her, and gave up after a point. Evidently, like religion and politics, one must generally refrain from discussing Harry Potter. Because all that talk about Harry Porter being a precursor to witchcraft is sheer nonsense, I am obligated to provide a listing of the titles published as at this writing, in hopes that it might inspire someone to actually read the books. They are: Harry Potter and the...
Read them, and buy a set for your local library if it is within your means. I highly recommend them. 28 July 2003 On Language, IV: The Decay of the English LanguageOne doesn’t have to be overly observant to recognize that the English language (especially the common, non-academic variant) is deteriorating. Many of us are too lazy to learn (or at the very least verify) proper spellings, so that it is now quite fashionable to write “Bar-B-Q” instead of “barbecue,” “donut” instead of “doughnut,” and “ tonite” instead of “tonight.” Shame on us for unabashedly denigrating our own language and contributing to its deterioration. Worse yet, woe unto us for inadvertently reducing the general level of intelligence. 15 July 2003 On Language, III: Riding the Bus: A Veritable MalapropismAs far as I am concerned, the only things that can be ridden are unicycles, bicycles, tricycles (and any other “cycles” there are), horses, asses (the animal, not the buttocks), donkeys, mules, camels, elephants, llamas, and any other animal that allows itself to be ridden. In short, if you are not sitting astride it (i.e. with your legs on either side of it), you are not riding it. So, it would be wrong to say that you rode the bus this morning, or that you are riding in John’s car, or that you will ride the train home. If you disagree, you know where to reach me. I am always open to, uh hum, intellectual discourse. 07 July 2003 On Language, II: “Your call will be returned…”Here, word for word, is a voice mail greeting I heard recently: Please leave a message, and your call will be returned as soon as I can. Let’s, for now, break the second part of the message into its two constituent parts: (a) …your call will be returned… The Active and the Passive ConstructionsAside from being a result of sheer incompetence, a writer, or speaker in this case, will (intentionally) use the passive form (“…your call will be returned…”) in place of the active form (…I will return your call…) for one singular reason: evasion. The passive form saves the writer or speaker the task of stating, explicitly, who did (or will do, or is doing) what. In this case, the speaker shirks the task of stating who will return the call. Succinctly, the passive form allows the writer or the speaker to construct a sentence without clearly identifying an object. (George Orwell argues this point rather expansively in his Politics and the English Language). There would be no need for this rant though, if the speaker did not construct the second part of the second sentence in the active form: (b) …as soon as I can. This inconsistency defeats the ulterior purpose of the passive construction (evasion) since it reveals that the speaker has at least something to do with returning the call. Importantly though, “…your call will be returned as soon as I can” sounds awkward because, aside from being inconsistent by combining active and passive constructions, it raises two questions, at least one of which must be answered to alleviate the awkwardness. So let’s regress to the two phrases we labeled (a) and (b) earlier, so as to reveal the question that derives from each: (a) …your call will be returned… [By whom?] Answering one of the two questions sanitizes the initial message, so that: Your call will be returned by me as soon as I can or Your call will be returned as soon as I can return your call are more logical alternatives to the original message. However, because these alternatives smack of redundancy, and, more importantly, because I oppose the use of the passive construction when an active equivalent will do, I recommend that the message be changed to: I will return your call as soon as I can. 04 July 2003 On Language, I: Clichés: Oh the Pain!Our social and intellectual life has come to be bathed in so many clichés that one hardly comes across any new expressions any more. Consider this excerpt from an article on Malware Management: Malware Management is a full-time job, however this function is often neglected or ignored altogether until an outbreak actually occurs, forcing the IT staff to drop everything in order to contain it while business grinds to a halt. When the dust settles, the blame game starts and it’s the network administrators who will be stuck without a chair when the music stops. [All emphasis mine] This, of course, is a rather peculiar case of arrant overuse of clichés, but it serves my argument very well. Clichés (drop everything, grinds to a halt, dust settles, blame game, stuck without a chair, when the music stops, etc.) are like horsemen who march to the rescue of the writer when he can think of no new ways to express himself. But using clichés further dulls the writer’s ability to express himself, so that the effect becomes the cause, and the initial problem is aggravated. (George Orwell advanced this same argument in his Politics and the English Language). In the end, the author expresses his ideas with a ready-made string of words, which dampen the impact of his discourse. While we grasp his general meaning, we are less moved by it than if he had used fresher expressions. Here then, in all modesty, is my re-worded version of the quotation: Malware Management is a full-time job. However this function is often neglected or ignored altogether until an outbreak actually occurs, forcing the IT staff to leave their regular tasks in order to contain the Malware outbreak, while normal business operations are interrupted. When the incident is eventually resolved, the network administrators are often the ones to be blamed for [failing to prevent the outbreak in the first place]. 30 June 2003 Contemplating
Our Society’s Susceptibility
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| Endomorphs: The naturally large person characterised with a round face, wide hips, big bones, slow metabolism and high number of fat cells. | Mesomorphs: The naturally muscular person with wide shoulders, small waist, athletic build, low body fat percentage and fast metabolism. | Ectomorphs: The skinny person with a linear appearance, small muscles, ultra fast metabolism, low body fat, narrow shoulders, hips and waist. |
| The pictures of body types above are based on males; however female body types are the same except for being smaller and with a little more body fat due to less lean weight. | Courtesy of: www.weightlossforall.com |
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But, the foregoing is not the subject of this rant. At least not per se.
I am sitting on the 35th Street bus, on my way to work, when I raise my head from the book I am reading (Wole Soyinka's The Open Sore of A Continent). I am accosted by a rather putrid Jenny Craig ad in one of the advertisement slots in the bus.
The images that fill the space are of two underwear: the one on the right is a large one and the one on the left is a petite, lacy one. The message clearly is: to replace your large underwear with this petite lacy one in less than no time, call or visit Jenny Craig. Inscribed beneath the images are, straightforwardly enough, words to that effect.
Now, I have no problems with people taking steps to reduce their weight, and I generally do not have problems with advertising, but I definitely take issues with being accosted with such images in the name of advertising.
Maybe I'm being unreasonably demanding, but aren't there more tasteful imageries that could convey Jenny Craig's message?
I wonder.
05 April 2003
Eulogies are almost always flowery flattery of the dead.
The character of the dead is unrepresentative of the living, but the characterization of the living is apt to change once he or she joins the fold of the dead.
04 March 2003
According to very reliable sources, here is The History of the Teddy Bear:
In 1901 President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt went on a bear hunting trip and had the chance to shoot a tired, very old bear, but he decided to set the bear free instead. News of his soft-heartedness spread, and a shopkeeper asked him if she could sew some stuffed bears and sell them in her stores, calling them "Teddy's bear." He agreed and since then, stuffed bears have been known as Teddy Bears. [all italics mine]
That, admittedly, is a nice little story. Happy Ending.
But wait a minute... The man who shot a "tired, very old bear," suddenly becomes "soft-hearted" because he set it free? And one of the icons of St. Valentine's day is named after a gun-totting, bear-shooting Teddy Roosevelt?
Come on!
06 January 2003
