Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

ELLEN HARMON WHITE - FOUNDER OF SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISM

LaVonne Neff reviews Ellen Harmon White: American Prophet and writes 

Adventists are everywhere: there are 18 million of them worldwide (and only 15 million Mormons). They have made major contributions to American culture: corn flakes, veggie burgers, so-called creation scientists. More important, at least to history buffs, White's story is the story of 19th-century America in microcosm.

 Me:  I was shocked to read there are more Adventists than Mormons, and that by quite a lot.  I wonder if that figure is accurate.  Read more of Neff's review...

THE IRS TARGETS ADOPTIVE FAMILIES

I am filing this blog post under the category: "Things I didn't know before".  David French recounts the various evils of the contemporary United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under the current Democrat administration and includes the following item, which I find unbelievably mendacious on the part of the IRS:

Maliciousness: How else can one interpret the IRS’s effort to audit adoptive families? In a two-year period almost 70 percent of adoptive families were audited (including, by the way, my family) without any indication of fraud or misconduct. By contrast, the normal chance of an audit for a middle-class family is roughly 1 percent. And what did the IRS get for this dragnet — a dragnet that caused real financial hardship to families who’d financially extended themselves to adopt? Not much: ”The IRS disallowed less than 2 percent of the total tax credits claimed.”

POVERTY TODAY

Michael Shermer reviewed Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler in the Wall Street Journal.  What especially stood out to me were the following statements, and especially the last which I have highlighted:

Given all the talk nowadays about income inequality, the authors' discussion of poverty is especially instructive. The number of people in the world living in absolute poverty has fallen by more than half since the 1950s. At the current rate of decline it will reach zero by around 2035. Groceries today cost 13 times less than 150 years ago in inflation-adjusted dollars. In short, the standard of living has improved: 95% of Americans now living below the poverty line have not only electricity and running water but also Internet access, a refrigerator and a television—luxuries that Andrew Carnegie's millions couldn't have bought at any price a century ago.

WHAT DO "BLACK ENGLISH" AND "MODERN HEBREW" HAVE IN COMMON?

In a review of John McWhorter's book, What Language Is, Erin McKean writes:

"Do you think Black English is a "dialect" full of "mistakes"?  You're likely to change your mind about its "languageness" after reading Mr. McWhorter's careful explanation of the similarities between Black English and Modern Hebrew -- both being slightly simplified versions of their 'parent' languages, Standard English and Biblical Hebrew.

 

THE TEXTING REVOLUTION IS HERE

And you can count me out, at least for now.  Talk about frazzling the nerves!  Things I didn't know before: 

The average 13- to 17-year-old sends and receives 3,339 texts a month—more than 100 per day, according to the Nielsen Co., the media research firm. Adults are catching up. People from ages 45 to 54 sent and received 323 texts a month in the second quarter of 2010, up 75% from a year ago, Nielsen says.

I find the texting revolution truly amazing.  From the same informative Wall Street Journal article I also learned that "talking" on a cell phone is becoming more and more rare. 

Anne McAndrews, a 21-year-old marketing major at Emerson College in Boston, says she and her friends almost never talk on the phone. "If I were to call someone, it would have to be urgent," she says. "Otherwise, it's sort of rude and invasive."

 

Voice mail is also becoming less used.

Mr. Siminoff says his research indicates a five-hour lag between the time a voice mail is left and listened to. Retrieving and listening to a 30-second voice mail takes a minute, he says, but "scanning" the text of a 30-second message takes about five seconds. "Voice mail is an old way of thinking in a digital lifestyle," he says.

  Finally, as far as my comments are concerned, I would note:

Texting saves us time, but it steals from quiet reflection. "When people have a mobile device and have even the smallest increment of extra time, they will communicate with someone in their life

Sounds to me like a classic case of addiction. I read a travel essay recently lauding a vacation to the ocean as a way to "slow down."  If a person takes along a cell phone, slowing down would seem a hard thing to do.  And I doubt that those already addicted could live a day without their phones.  According to the article, two-thirds of adults sleep with their cellphones next to their bed.

There's no doubt about it, we are in the midst of a revolution.  At some point I expect the strain of constant communication and stimulation to frazzle the nerves and lead to new psychological pathologies.  As for damage to the English language (and an inability to write in full sentences), one can only imagine.

THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE

** 9/11 Truthers around the world:

The University of Maryland's World Public Opinion surveys have found that just 2% of Pakistanis believe al Qaeda perpetrated the attacks, whereas 27% believe it was the U.S. government. (Most respondents say they don't know.)

Among Egyptians, 43% say Israel is the culprit, while another 12% blame the U.S. Just 16% of Egyptians think al Qaeda did it. In Turkey, opinion is evenly split: 39% blame al Qaeda, another 39% blame the U.S. or Israel. Even in Europe, Ahmadinejad has his corner. Fifteen percent of Italians and 23% of Germans finger the U.S. for the attacks.

**  Tyrannosaurus rex undergoes revised thinking - This article surprised me to learn  how tentative and unstable were the "facts" I learned as a youngster.

** How Handwriting Trains the Brain  - I wasn't aware of the multiple benefits for children and adults to write out letters rather than punch keys.  (Though I remember reading some years ago that George Will wrote his columns longhand with a pen and legal pad.  Does he still do that?)    --  I also I didn't know about apps for smartphones and tablets that accept handwriting input with a finger or stylus, which then converts to text for email, documents or Twitter updates.   Sounds like an interesting compromise.

1939 WAS THE ZENITH OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD

So says Pamela Geller. 

The thirties, forties, fifties boast a treasure trove of  classic, brilliant film masterpieces, but '39 was unmatched.  Movie historians and cinemaphiles agree that 1939 was "the greatest year in film history". Consider the exceptional Dark Victory, Ninotchka, Rules of the Game , The Wizard of Oz, The Young Mr. Lincoln, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Juarez, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Destry Rides Again, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Women, Wuthering Heights, and Gone With the Wind -- all made that year.

These films reflect American culture's finest hour. Essentially, they are a reflection on our values, morality, and art. Consider American film just one of our unquantifiable gifts to the world. We ought to look back, in order to go forward. So grab the popcorn, dim the lights and take a trip back with Atlas.  [more . . .]

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT ISLAMIST BUTCHERY

Ibn Warraq in Forbes magazine:  [my bolding]    HT: NRO Corner

There are said to have been at least 14,396 acts of Islamic terrorism (if we include the latest blast in Peshawar, Pakistan) since the World Trade Center atrocity; more people are killed by Islamists each year than were killed in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition; more civilians were killed by Muslim extremists on 9/11 than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Then let us not forget the recent acts in Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Thailand, India, Somalia, Nigeria, the Philippines and almost on a daily basis in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And yet, it is Muslims who are offended when we raise these facts.  [more . .]

AMERICAN SOLDIERS ON AMERICAN BASES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE ARMED!

I suppose my headline is common knowledge to a lot of people, but it was news to me.  Stephanie Gutmann, (author of  The Kinder, Gentler Military:  How Political Correctness Affects Our Ability to Win Wars. writes at The Corner

"Overseas, you are ready for it. But here, you can't even defend yourself," said Jerry Richard, a Fort Hood solider who was nearby when Major Nidal Hasan went on his shooting rampage.

What do the Pentagon bureaucrats have to say about that? If soldiers on this base had been allowed to carry the weapons they use overseas, the service weapons they train with, Hasan would have been able to shoot perhaps one or two people, not 41. (As of this writing, 13 are dead, 28 wounded.)

"It's a tragedy to lose soldiers overseas and even more horrifying when they come under fire at an Army base on U.S. soil," said President Obama.

Indeed. How ironic: Survive Iraq or Afghanistan then get picked off like a game bird in a bland, institutional "Soldier Readiness Center" in Texas.

40% OF FRENCH BELIEVE THERE'S NOTHING AFTER DEATH

Denis Boyles notes a poll,

one conducted by Sofres just in time for Easter and reported on Europe 1. It shows that 40 percent of  the French now believe there's "nothing after death." France is nominally Catholic, of course, but it's Catholic sort of the same way Kathleen Sebelius is "Catholic"  . . .   Maybe that's why, according to this poll, more French Catholics hope for reincarnation than believe in resurrection. The thought must be that if you could just get a do-over, you'd get it right the second time around.

Here's the French article, should anyone want to brush up on their high school or college French (like me):

40% des Français affirment qu’il n’y a rien après la mort, soit 13 % de plus qu’en 1986,

Things I Didn't Know Before

What I learned from a recent e-mail:

- "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand...

- And "lollipop" is the longest word typed with your right hand.

- No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, purple.

- The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.

- The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

- There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

- There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

- Typewriter is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one  row of the keyboard.