The Vagueness of Precision

"Get it in writing," teachers, lawyers, businessmen and other sticklers for accuracy will say when they want to be sure everyone understands. Otherwise no one, ten years from now, will agree on what was said.
     But can you depend on the written word? Language - even English - varies from place to place. Grade-school teachers taught me, "A pint's a pound, the world around," meaning a pint of water always weighs a pound. And that is true, if you spend your whole life in the USA. Cross into Canada, though, and the imperial gallon still contains only 8 (imperial) pints, but it contains about ten pounds of water; a pint there weighs one and a quarter pounds.
     Most of the rest of the world, including Canada and Britain, now avoid such confusion by employing liters and kilograms that all nations define in the same manner.  But Americans can't be bothered to change.
      Well, alphabetical order is dependable all over the world, isn't it? Yes, if you file in alphabetical order, you can probably locate your papers again. If you use English, there are dependably 26 letters always in the same order. But the alphabet in Greek has only 24 letters; the Russian Cyrillic alphabet has 33.  The Thai alphabet has 46 consonants plus 33 vowel marks. The closely related Shan language gets along with only 17 consonants.
     But even the 26-letter "English" alphabet is pronounced differently in different countries. The last 3 letters in USA are pronounced "eks-wye-zee" but a German would pronounce them "iks-ipsilon-tset."
     The British comedian Alec Guiness based the plot of his movie 'The Lavender Hill Mob" on the difference in pronunciation in Britain and France. His team of crooks successfully rob an armored car of its gold shipment, but must smuggle it out of Britain before they can live in luxury. They melt the gold ingots and recast them in the shape of France's Eiffel Tower, which they usually make from lead, to sell in Paris as souvenirs. Camouflaged with a coat of paint, the average person cannot tell the difference. They mark the gold-containing crates with an "R"  (which Brits pronounce "ah") and tell their agent in Paris  be sure to not sell from crates thus marked. When the mobsters arrive in Paris to collect their gold they are horrified to see their French agent doing brisk business from the crate with the R mark.
     "But M'sieur," the agent says,"that is not an 'ah' (the French pronunciation of 'A'), that is an 'ehr-r' ('R') " The rest of the film revolves around the mobsters' frantic efforts to recover the images that have already been sold.
     To make language even more difficult, translators are often plagued by the changing meaning of words over past centuries since a manuscript was written, perhaps in a different part of the world. As an example, "gay" used to mean happy.  Centuries ago, to "prevent" something meant simply "to happen before it." But as words gradually change, prevent now means to stop it from happening at all.
    And finally, where you come from sometimes alters the meaning. A State Highway  Patrol officer stopped a car bearing a Georgia license When the driver rolled down his window, the trooper asked him, "Do you have any ID?" The driver looked puzzled. "Bout whut?"
      So when you write, go back over your manuscript not only for misspelling, but for alternative meanings.

Fear of Death

As the number of ninety-year-olds in the world rapidly increases, attitude toward impending end of life is changing. Time magazine this week (February 22-29, page 72, expresses it concisely: “Why are old people less scared of dying?” under a sketch of an old person, hands in pockets, defiantly leaning forward to blow bubble gum in the face of the Grim Reaper, Death.

       My wife and I, ages 84 and 86, are among those who are not afraid. We've weathered breast cancer, and open heart surgery, chronic arthritis, deafness, failing eyesight, failing memory, gastric acid reflux, poor balance and half a dozen types of pills each day, and we are still enjoying life as it is now. At this age, almost everything comes to us with a lifetime guarantee. We have four adult children each gainfully employed, and interesting grandchildren (who are also all adults.) We are celebrating 63 years of marriage, still in love in every way. When our time comes to go, we hope to leave legacies that, even if checkered with both achievement and misfortune, will show a balance of good choices over unwise ones.

       We believe our future does not depend on “luck” or on blind chance, but on our attitude toward life. We believe in a loving God, who created the Universe and who cares for the human race both as individuals and as a whole. We do not presume to describe God, nor do we try to dictate the path by which we travel. 
      Is Jesus the only way to God? He is the only way that I trust. But I do not judge those who attempt another path. God is their judge, not I. I do realize, though, that there are some times when my path may include the responsibility to inform someone, or to listen to someone's problem and offer help.

       I sense God's presence as an awareness in my own life -- an unusual thought or idea that does not seem to arise from my own mental processes; imagination of what could be, or an impulse to help someone in need, or an impulse to change my life's direction.

       I believe there is a life after physical death, available to all who want to accept God's free offer. It depends only on our choice to place our life in God's hands, asking God's help in putting away the anger, the resentments, the habits and desires that have separated us from God's presence. We cannot save ourselves. But we can trust God to do whatever it takes. That trust is the reason I am not afraid of death.

       I look on death as a transfer point, where we change trains (or planes, or whatever analogy you prefer.)
      Your thoughts?

Making Your Story Believable

Let's say you are writing a historical novel and want to liven it up a little with conversation to start it off. So you have Benjamin Franklin coming home to dinner and telling his wife, "You'll never believe what happened yesterday: Abraham Lincoln was born!"

Your readers will never believe that either. Wait a minute, they'll think. Why would anyone believe that was important, years before Lincoln grew up and ran for president? How would Franklin know anyway, the very next day about a birth hundreds of miles away, years before even the telegraph was invented? Not to mention that Franklin died in 1790, and you have him telling his wife about a birth in 1809?

You might get away with mistakes like that if you were writing for children in the first-grade, but few American adults would take your book seriously.

More often, authors make several little mistakes throughout their story, things that many readers won't pick up on. But if even only a few recognize the errors, they will naturally tell others and the word gets around that this author doesn't know his subject.

I asked a retired school teacher who had lived in Papua New Guinea and now lives in Spokane to critique my novel, "The Samana Incident" after it was published. I should have asked her before publishing. I had worked in PNG for five weeks once, and assumed I knew enough background to get the story right. Here are a few of the errors she pointed out, most of them small, but they add up:

The island is named New Guinea, not Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is the nation that occupies only the eastern half

An Australian would never say "bloody bandaged arm" unless he was swearing. He would say "bleeding arm".

When people in PNG say kilos, they mean kilograms, as in weight, not kilometers as in distance.

PNG people are great networkers in relationships. Most of my book's characters are seen to be acting as individuals, when in fact they would work in groups.

They do not plant fields, but smaller gardens, and the gardens are most often clan sites, not individual family plots.

She doubts that meat would spoil in only one day in the cool highland climate (causing the epidemic of food poisoning in the story) though it could happen down on the hot coast. One thing she did not mention, and perhaps never knew, was that the main character, Police Lieutenant Kerro, could not have that rank – it doesn't exist. In the real police there, the ranks go from sergeant directly to inspector.

Since then I have interviewed some people who know more than I do about Papua New Guinea, to see if I can put together another book with fewer American mistakes. I went to Coeur d'Alene and interviewed an Australian friend about the way Aussies talk. He advised me not to worry about the word "bloody". He said that when Australian men talk together, bloody is one of the common words they use. I asked him about a couple of other expressions I had heard in the past, like "good-oh" meaning approval. "You don't hear that much any more," he said, “Most often your man would say something like "good on yer." (meaning "good for you.")
 

In The Samana Incident, I could get away with an occasional mistake because the audience is mostly American, and many have some familiarity with illegal drug trade, the theme of the book. But with the next novel in the series, South Sea Gold, I did more research first. PNG has newly discovered vast mineral wealth, and citizens and foreigners eager to exploit it. 
 

This time, I read from the growing literary talent of native PNG writers, I Googled a dozen or more actual actual PNG mines, their dangers and disasters from reports in international news and in the two English-language PNG newspapers. I compared them with historical facts and experience of my own after forty years in North Idaho's mining district, where mines are developed under stricter safety codes. I then combined the woes of several large mines into a single fictitious gold and copper mine owned by foreign interests, dumped into the lap of a fictitious newspaper reporter pitted against crooked industrialists. And promoted police lieutenant Kerro to the rank of inspector, which actually exists.

Movie studios employ "fact checkers" full time to go over a movie script very carefully for mistakes in a plot.We writers have to do that for ourselves because in today's publishing world, most publishers don't offer that service anymore.

Sitting in the Cancer Treatment Waiting Room

If a writer keeps his eyes and ears open he/she can find story material anywhere.

For the past month my wife has been going five days per week to the cancer center forty miles from our home. Her cancer showed up early on the mammogram, and the doctors think that lumpectomy and radiation treatments will probably take care of it. I often accompany her, sitting in the small waiting room provided for family members during the ten or fifteen minutes the patient is under the big X-ray machine.

I see other patients come and go, get to recognize some of them who are scheduled before and after my wife. Some are gaunt, resigned, chronically ill appearing. Others are matter of fact or cheerful. One morning, even before entering the room, I could see a middle-aged woman writhing in agony, standing by one of the chairs, leaning on it for support. As we entered, she staggered into one of the dressing cubicles “Do you need help?” my wife asked. Half reclining on the little bench in the cubicle, she gave a wan smile and said no.

The radiology tech called my wife into the corridor to the treatment room just then; I kept a concerned eye on the half-open curtain where the lady was still reclining but apparently resting. I wondered what kind of malignancy would cause such an event, but I was reluctant to appear nosy. Presently a man entered the waiting room, and the woman said, “In here.” He turned to her and calmly reported that the doctor said he was making good progress. It was he who had the cancer. She got up and they left. My wife and I speculated on a diagnosis of panic attack about her husband's condition.

On another morning, my curiosity was aroused when a young woman who appeared to be six or seven months pregnant came in and sat down. Why would she be getting radiation treatments during pregnancy? I wondered. A few minutes later, the elderly man who is usually ahead of my wife on the schedule came back from his treatment and started a conversation with the girl, apparently his granddaughter. Not wanting to appear nosy, I kept my eyes on the book I was reading, but I couldn't fail to notice the big plastic frame he had set on the floor by his chair. It looked like it would fit snugly over the front half of his head and chest.

The granddaughter, apparently an intern at a nearby law firm, was about to take him with her while she monitored the trial of a young man who was charged with murdering two family members. She had no part in the trial, except to observe her law firm in action. "You have to be sure to sit in the prosecution's side of the balcony,” she cautioned her granddad, “If you take a seat on the defense's side, you'll make me look bad to my boss.”

She got up to go down the hall for a few minutes, and I took the opportunity to ask the elderly man about the plastic wire frame on the floor. “Oh, this is my last day of treatment, and they let me take it home. It fits over me on the X-ray table, reminds me to stay still, and these little holes on each side of the neck show the technician exactly where to direct the beam.

“And what will you do with it at home?” I asked.

“Gonna put it in my scrap book!”

He had came up here from California to visit his daughter two months ago, got sick here, and found he had cancer of the tongue.

My wife had returned from treatment and was ready to go. But if a writer pays attention to what's going on around him, he can find the beginnings of a story almost anywhere.

Planned Parenthood - Religious Issue or Politics?

Applying common sense, it need not be either one.

The Planned Parenthood organization has been heavily criticized for providing abortions, but the large majority of their clients come, not for abortion, but for help in preventing pregnancy or for counseling on how to have a healthy baby. Critics should recognize that the organization also provides much needed maternal health care to low income families who have no other resource. Mentioning only one aspect of their work is unprofessional.

I have been a family physician for fifty years, and have personally delivered more than one thousand babies. I am pro-life, but also pro-choice. I choose to not do abortions, although I realize that in a few situations, one may be advisable. But if, instead of aborting an unwanted pregnancy, a pregnancy is not begun, the question of abortion does not arise.

Not every couple having sex wants to have another baby, for any of several reasons. If that is the case, it makes sense to try to keep sperm from fertilizing the egg. That way, no pregnancy happens, and there is nothing to abort.

There are several ways to accomplish this. If the man uses a condom every time, the sperm are not free to travel into the woman's uterus. Or if the woman takes “birth control pills” according to the directions, the ovary won't produce eggs, and pregnancy doesn't occur. This type of medicine is also available as an injection every three months, or an implant under the skin that lasts up to five years (but can be removed sooner on request.)

If a husband and wife already have as many children as they want, the passage way from the ovary to the  uterus can be tied off (“tube tie”) or the man's passageways from the testicles can be interrupted (“vasectomy”). Such surgery is fairly simple and permanent, although it can be undone at some expense. Once the operation heals, the sex act is just as pleasurable as it was before. And women and men can decide the size of their families.

Planned Parenthood and allied groups provide badly needed service in preventing unwanted conception, and a healthy outcome when another child is wanted. It's not like the world needs unlimited population growth. Air pollution, overcrowded slums, water shortages, increasing government bureaucracy, crime, and many other modern ills have their roots in a rapidly growing population. Good maternal and child health needs groups like Planned Parenthood. Reducing the number of unwanted conceptions is the most sensible way of reducing the number of abortions. Planned Parenthood's main goal is instructing women of childbearing age how to space their pregnancies and choose the time to have them.

The Character of Debate

In this nation of more than three hundred million citizens, representing a wide range of income, skills and beliefs, it's natural that people's needs will vary over a wide range of political issues. Each candidate has strong opinions and makes statements designed for him to stand out, and attract voters.
Since the outcome of the election will affect most of us for good or ill, debate is appropriate. Deliberate misinformation, insults, and anger are not.
Such attitudes distract people from the real issues and practical solutions. The ranting in the formal debates often amounts to little more than a spitting contest. In addition, they incite fear, hate, and encourage attitudes that harm other citizens.
I recall the time when my Dad was president of the National Council of Churches from 1957 to 1960, when a TV evangelist, Billy James Hargis, accused the Council of being a communist front, and that some ministers were “card-carrying communists”. Hargis challenged Dad to public debate. The evangelist made several additional unproven claims that news media and universities were also involved. Congress argued the matter for three days (April 19th ,1960). Public opinion finally sided overwhelmingly in favor of the Council of Churches.
That wasn't enough for Dad. He had one commanding principle in debates: “The main object in conflict is not to win the victory and eliminate the enemy, but to win the enemy and eliminate the enmity.” When Hargis came to St.Louis, Dad phoned him and and invited him to lunch. The two of them talked for four hours that afternoon and ended with a brief prayer. Afterward, Hargis said, “I promise you now, I will never again say a harsh word about you!” And he never did.
In an interview I had with the aging evangelist in 1997, he remembered the incident well, and told me, “Your Dad was one of the best friends I ever had. [We] would discuss, not argue.”
That approach appears to be mostly lacking in the present presidential campaign, as accusations fly and tempers fray. Such attitude is a disservice to America's voters. The contest still has months to go. Let's hear how to solve the real issues.

The Republican Debates

I am an adult independent voter who watched the whole show last night, both the minor four and the major seven, two hours of each group. Several senators, several ex-governors, and several professionals from other fields. Each one obviously an achiever in his/her selected field, and each able to think rapidly enough to reply to challenges, even if not always relevant to the question asked. (They did, after all, have their own agenda to emphasize.)

I personally liked the Ohio ex-governor; he seems to have paid attention to the needs of his state. I respect the neurosurgeon for his manner and speech, but his background in medicine does not prepare him in foreign policy or government finance. Mr. Trump is entertaining, in a manner of speaking, but that does not prepare him to be a diplomatic world leader.

Recent terrorist activity was a major topic (carefully avoiding discussion of gun control.) The proposed solutions emphasized forbidding terrorists' entry into America, military destruction of the jihadist Caliphate in Syria, updating the size and armament of USA's military, building walls along our borders, and filtering out the persons and their communications who have evil on their mind. There was passing mention of the need for updating America's physical infrastructure and the education of the next generation, but no mention of what existing government programs to cut or taxes to raise, or any other way to finance the very ambitious projects they envisioned. No mention of working with others in Congress to even finance the government budget for next week, let alone next year.

So who's going to pay for all this? Donald Trump's personal billions are chicken-feed compared with the trillion dollar cost of modernizing the military, or rebuilding America's bridges and highways, let alone erecting walls hundreds of miles long (which a tunnel or a helicopter can penetrate.

And while you're at it, candidates, let's hear at least a little well-deserved praise for some of the things the Obama government HAS done. Saving the economy from going bankrupt when the banks collapsed, for example. Or providing medical care to millions who were going broke paying their medical costs?