Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

• Patriotic acts:
• Fly the flag only with certain rules.
• Stand for the National Anthem;
• Know the words of th Anthem;
• Acts of Etiquette: rules governing socially acceptable behavior
• Write thank you notes.
• Learn and follow table-setting rules.
• Take a seat in a theater in the dark by facing the correct way and using the correct language. Better yet, show up always on time to avoid such disturbances.
• Study a book of etiquett
• Dating customs and rules of behavior
• Youth respect for their elders, teachers, among others
• Remembering birthdays, anniversaries, dates of significant events, names of relatives, of acquaintances, of family friends, of officers, etc.

Respect Social Practices of Fellow Citizens

respect Other Forms of Ritual or Principles


]]> http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/respect/feed/ 0 Jack http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-idiocy-in-standard-and-poors-method-of-quantifying-the-quality-of-the-american-economy/ http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-idiocy-in-standard-and-poors-method-of-quantifying-the-quality-of-the-american-economy/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:58:01 +0000 John F. Deethardt II http://emergent79.wordpress.com/?p=3794 ]]>

From “AAA” to “AA+” for the Average Citizen: Who Was Their Audience?

Let the Scales Fall from Their Eyes. The Emotional Content in Standard and Poor’s Ratings Outweighs Its Utility for Trade


Colbert: “Freakout Mode!

“AAA” That’s where our credit-worthiness used to stand.

Now it is “AA+” Is there an “AA-”?

What is that little flourish on the end, that “+” ? It’s like a Momma’s afterthought to mitigate in some small way her harsh treatment of her misbehaving son. Or is there really a meaningful and significant difference between the “+” and the missing “A”?

The raters seem to be examining in an extremely minute way, sort of microscopic analysis. They concluded with the slap of a ruler on the upturned palm of, oh, let’s say—— the President!

This is the truth I derive. There is no quantitative definition of the meaning in the symbolism of trading an “A” for a “+”. The import of the rating system is wholly nondescriptive and emotional. What is the verbal equivalent (operational definition!) of “AAAA, of “AAA”, etc.? How is any citizen to take the measure of that rating? Feel bad about your country’s economic system? “Better yet,” they will imply, “feel bad about Pres. Obama’s presidency because we raters do not think he is the President for us (I’ve heard that charge) and he has caused the nation to droop economically; therefore, to that extent, spank him by taking away an “A” and substitute a “+”, and let those symbols speak for themselves. We are confident that that symbolic SPANKING will receive no explanation about what lies behind it in the mass media. There will be emotion, which will redound to the President’s stewardship of the economy.”

Nearly everyone is intimately familiar with this scale: A = Excellent; B = Good; C = Average; D = Poor; F = Failure, having earned an overall average grade to be stuck on their foreheads and been thus branded for life with that rating. Deportment was also graded, at times. Some are familiar with the conversion of the grades to percentages. Kids then thought of themselves in the terms of their grades. “I’m a ‘B’ student.” Or, “I am only 80% good.” It is a form of cattle-branding. Pres. Obama himself branded the U.S.: “We are a triple ‘A’ nation!” Or words to that effect.

(DIGRESSION: Actually, most grades are paper-pencil-test, short-answer grades. Some element in them is not a teacher’s estimation. Seldom do teachers trot out a list of behavioral objectives, the true touchstones by which learners ought to be judged, a more difficult but substantialy more valid and reliable assessment system.

(Ask a teacher to be accountable for a grade assigned; you will get their ultimate bases for a grade given. You will have asked a very interesting question, but expect some curious answers.)

Ask the raters of the credit-worthiness of a national economy the same question. Ask them to explain the grade to the nation, to OUR satisfaction, not THEIRS, without any journalist go-between. I watch the news as much as anybody, or perhaps more than the norm. I am not satisfied that I have heard that disquisition.

I am no math whiz. I have a basic understanding of statistics of probability, self- and on-the-job taught. However, there does not seem to be any aspect of “PROBABILITY” in the grade given by the S&P people, with a stated margin of error, and a more tentative judgment implied. No, the S&P statement and its grading-form was an ABSOLUTE, SUMMARY judgment, with the certainty of a judge’s verdict of “GUILTY!” with no scale possible. There are scales of judgment. There are several types of scales, for measuring different things. There are more exacting measurements and there are more subjective measurements.

However, I can appreciate good explanations of rating scales. There are these four basic scales:

• nominal scale (categorical values);
• ordinal scale (rank ordering values);
• interval scales(units of measurement, like the temperature as a referant to absolute zero) anchored on some absolute foundation;
• and ratio scales, the distinguishing feature of a ratio scale being the possession of a non-arbitrary zero value. (I always thought of the piano keys and the tones played as being something of a ratio scale in the vibrations that made the sound. Please correct me if I am wrong. On that and on any of the others, too.)

What rating scale did Standard & Poor use?

“Rate how you feel right now on a scale of one to ten, ‘one’ being ‘dead’ and ‘ten’ being ‘top of the world infallible and unconquerable’”. That is a rather subjective, ordinal scale, ordering your feelings about yourself, from “dead” to “most lively”. That scale is good for you but it needs to be researched for validity: are you measuring what you think you are measuring? Then it must be standardized if you want to use the same scale to take the measure of everyone in your extended family, in order to get the conclusion that “we are a sickly bunch”; compared to what? So ask the family next door. Turns out “they are a robust bunch” if they were to be submitted to the same measure.

Talking about scales, in general, is a good exercise in checking yourself for reliable and unreliable ways of thinking in everyday life. About all sorts of measures in all sorts of contexts. I believe. They make you think about what you know and how you know it.

Art is long, and that is the art of science. In fact, a philosopher once said that the final tuft and essence of science is art. (Alfred North Whitehead?) I am sure when Einstein played the violin, he heard the mathmatics of the harmonic scales over the octaves in the notes he played. Or something like that.

In something so important as a nation’s economic status, we get a rating slapped on us collectively.

In such a way as to achieve Colbert’s epithet. Not through cool understanding.

Part of the idiocy in Standard and Poor’s method of quantifying the quality of the American economy is their lack of follow-up for the average citizen; they did not communicate their decision. Who was the real audience? I believe that they had a responsibility to the public at large. They might have flooded the popular media with guest commentary and should not have missed any of the multitude of outlets with explanations in laymen’s terms.

This essay was tough for me to write. I simply have questions, but I do not know how to ask them.

Concise explications welcome.


]]> http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-idiocy-in-standard-and-poors-method-of-quantifying-the-quality-of-the-american-economy/feed/ 2 Jack http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/the-test-of-the-good-doctor-or-the-good-patient/ http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/the-test-of-the-good-doctor-or-the-good-patient/#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:45:20 +0000 John F. Deethardt II http://emergent79.wordpress.com/?p=3620 ]]>

“Now that’s a good doctor!” Can you say that about your doctor? What is there that will test whether your doctor is acutely insightful and wise, a source of valuable insights and sapient advice. In short, your doctor is good because your doctor is understanding. And what is it he must understand?

That you understand!

He or she diagnoses your health problem. Then he says that he will write a prescription for you to take. Now! Here comes the test of the empathy and understanding of your doctor! Is this doctor of yours a truly great doctor? What must your doctor do to prove his or her ability to solve or alleviate your health problem?

The doctor must be assured by you that you understand your health problem. How do the best doctors do that? He simply says this: “Now you tell me what I have described as your problem. In your own words say what I have told you that your health problem is.” If the doctor does not do that, then it is totally up to you to be the GOOD patient to say, “Now doctor, let me get this straight. This is my problem as you have stated it: (blah-blah-blah) Is that right?” Then you must go on to say, “This prescription will do this: (blah-blah-blah) Am I right?”

You have stated what you have understood to be your health problem. You get it right. Or you get it half right and you are corrected. Or you have missed the point altogether and are corrected. You have then passed the test of understanding or you have misunderstood. When you leave that good doctor’s office, you will have a firm grip on your marching orders, what you have to do to make yourself better.

Much of the confusion is what the nature of your problem is, how you take your medicine, what the effects will be, what cautions must be heeded, what side effects might occur, and how the prescription will act on that problem and, hopefully, will “cure” the problem. A huge problem is in the terminology, the medical words for health problems and the medical words for the medicines. Absolutely HUGE! The jargon, the mind-numbing jargon of the profession laid on the patient.

Such thorough understanding should be the goal of any doctor who considers him- or herself to be a great doctor. And, the goal of any GOOD patient.

It is APPLIED UNDERSTANDING, where you actively listen by repeating back what the speaker said to the speaker’s satisfaction.

Actually, we should all be so lucky to have such an informative interchange. I do not think such doctors are in plentiful supply. And I do not believe that GOOD PATIENTS are in plentiful supply, either. As it so happens, I have been undergoing such a problem that has motivated me to write this. (I am shaking my didactic finger in my own face at this point.) But I think I have figured it out on my own. Now I will go to the pharmacist and tell him what I have put together as my problem and all that stuff about the prescription. If the doctor does not do it, it’s up to you to put together your own narrative. And I hope you have the active mind to do for yourself what the doctor may have left undone.

A former colleague of mine studied doctor-patient communication. I remember his saying that many doctors have not had a course in doctor-patient communication. That may have to be on-the-job training. Unless med schools have begun to include that in the curriculum.

Doctor, heal thyself!

Patient, question! Persist! Probe thyself! It is your duty.

Maybe it is just a well choreographed dance, taking two to tango.

Post Script: 6-23-11

May I suggest to you that you try out “active listening” (APPLIED UNDERSTANDING) on that teen-ager in your family. Adolescents can be tough because their peer pressure is so tough for you moms and dads to compete against. Also, your boss! Also your spouse! Also your teacher! Also your (?) (you name it) etc. etc. etc.


]]> http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/the-test-of-the-good-doctor-or-the-good-patient/feed/ 7 Jack http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/an-potential-political-conspiracy-could-be/ http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/an-potential-political-conspiracy-could-be/#comments Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:25:15 +0000 John F. Deethardt II http://emergent79.wordpress.com/?p=3586 ]]>
I am not a conspiracy theorist, BUT…

I have not ever thought in terms of conspiracies standing behind and explaining great events in our national life. A conspiracy is a cabal agreeing on a plan of action to disrupt, destroy, overturn, undermine some law, or regime, or policy, or activity.

I do not usually see conspiracies at the bottom of all that I consider bad. Mostly, I see the ignorance of the public in making choices to serve better their interests rather than follow some ideology promulgated by a political party platform.

Conspiracies generally seem to be some minority agreeing among themselves to bring some plan of action to fruition in order to gain the power they desparately need to become the majority party. The plan of action must be undercover because the action probably might appear to be wrong, shameful, dishonest, dishonorable, cowardly, or brutish, way beyond simple demagoguery, to achieve some end, such as winning an election. Covert action is the best way to make something bad seem good and natural and desired.

Recently, the “birther” conspiracy gained credibility among people who hated the President.

I remember when President Roosevelt was accused of “inviting” the attack on Pearl Harbor by ignoring credible information reported about threatening Japanese military movements in the South Pacific. Certain historians wrote about the president’s culpability, which on further consideration proved to be untrue. It was said that the President wanted to bring on a war as a way out of the economic doldrums the nation was in.

Collusion, which always has a negative connotation, in a plan is a secret understanding with the intent to accomplish some bad end that cannot be accomplished by open and honest means. Damaging Obama to get him defeated in the next election. Damaging the reputation of President Roosevelt to get him defeated in the next election.

A Current Conspiracy Possible

I am going to pose the emergence of a political conspiracy.

Fact one, we are coming into an election cycle for electing a president, after four years of the Obama administration.

Fact two, the Republicans are out of power in the Administration and Congress.

The third fact is that the Republican Party is composed of people who subscribe to the conservative right ideology, having an overriding preference for unfettered capitalism in business and industry, for the purpose of amassing ever increasing wealth for owners and corporations. And I might add, for the representatives of the people who need big bucks for winning re-election.

Another fact is that the machines of business and industry, mass production lines, and other automated devices along with computerization, providing ever greater efficiencies, are taking manual labor more and more out of any workplace. The work force is diminished in numbers. The machines need maintenance, but they do not organize and make salary and benefits demands.

A fifth fact is true: the owners are sending manual labor to other nations where people work for much lower wages. Called outsourcing, an invention of management to maximise those wealth gains from cheaper labor, unemployment is increased by this fact.

A sixth fact is that a conservative party win at the polls will, I say definitely, eventuate in a win for government deregulation of business and industry, lowering the numerous costly measures for guaranteeing the health and safety of workers and consumers on the job, in the home, and in society generally. They want to win at all costs, at the cost of the health and safety and education of U.S. citizens, in the cities and towns and on the farm, all for the bottom line. Who knows how far they will take their ideology, to the first responders to natural disasters, to infrastructure repair, to the privatization of most government functions, too numerous to list here?

Fact: The workers have a party that opposes the capitalists and their ideology of emaciated government and corporations fattened by privatization of all government acts possible. The Republicans view the Democrats as socialists. The manner in which the Democrats make our government machinery serve the needs of millions of people might be considered a socialization of the major factors embedded in the “General Welfare” language of the Preamble to our social contract, education and good health and fair taxation and workers’ rights and safe environments and air and food and functional infrastructure and — well, you get the idea — that may be called an enlightened socialism. I do not mind that label. It works for me. The government can do it better and cheaper by the very fact that the government does not have a profit motive boosting the costs. We have seen that bad result in private enterprise payments to their golden-tower and golden-parachute CEOs, COTBs, etc. The recent health-care example is a case in point. The opposition must be saying to themslves, “DAMN! We missed a great opportunity to make a killing in that enterprise!” (soto voce, “But just wait ’til we take over coming up!”)

Fact Eight: Collective bargainng by labor is seriously under attack, and has been lost in a couple of cases. More states and the federal government executive, judicial, and legislative branches must be controlled to win the battles against union power to influence corporations and other economic enterprises.

The ninth fact is that the U.S. Supreme Court has defined the corporation as another individual like the one-person-one-vote individual, for purposes of the moneyed support of candidates who speak the capitalistic (increasing-ownership-wealth on the bottom line) ideology.

Fact Ten: To hire the unemployed is in the hands of the conservatives of business and industry. That choice will test their empathy for the unemployed against their profit motive and loyalty to the conservative ideology. The latter, it appears to me, will beat out the former every time. And that may be the basis of a conspiracy among them.

CONCLUSION: Those facts support a political advantage for the conservatives in the Republican Party as long as the jobless rate remains HIGH.

What’s the conspiracy I see?

The issue of “joblessness” is the Trojan Horse, brought into every courtyard of debate by the Republicans to attack the Democrats for their failure to solve that joblessness issue, after the Republicans have conspired to prevent the legislation that offers solutions to the problem. That is the nature of the conspiracy of the Republicans. They successfully conspired to defeat collective bargaining for unionized workers in Wisconsin, in which the workers lost the Constitutional right to peacefully assemble. I am certain they have found in that scheme to keep HIGH the number of people without jobs by refusing to enact job-creation plans, such as the formation of a new infrastructure bank, a certain way to cause the Democrats to lose the next election for the presidency.

All the economic interests of the owners and corporations can be served by keepng “joblessness” high: to irritate Pres. Obama’s constituents enough to cause him and his party to lose the next election. (See fact ten.)

The Republican party line will be this: “Elect us, and watch the jobless rate go down and improve markedly under a Republican government. The Republican policies are the only ones that can and will raise the number of new jobs to make the U.S. prosperous again.”

They will, I say, collude, with the secret understanding that they will only do under a Republican administration, to make the U.S. economy vibrant again, what they just as well could do under a Democrat majority if they wished to cooperate. In effect, they will let the economy and the people suffer many hardships until they rule the roost. They have the ownership power that the Democrat party does not have.

It may be. It could be. I think they have a vested interest in keeping these times BAD for workers. And it seems to me that the workers who vote Republican will vote against their own best interests, seduced in some strange way by the Republican ideology.

I believe our nation should aim for ever higher levels of health and education, and that will only be possible under the Democrats because much of the millions for funding health and education programs and policies will not be siphoned off in profits for the owners. MORE FACTS: The Democrats are government people. The Republicans are capitalistic, for-personal-profit, anti-government people.

I leave you with these questions: Can unemployment be manipulated? Is unemployment/joblessness a variable within the control of an ideology of a political party? Are unemployment rates and corporate profits co-variates? And how could that be? I do not know the full import of what I am asking here. I could use some help.


]]> http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/an-potential-political-conspiracy-could-be/feed/ 10 Jack http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/a-simplification-of-the-politics-economy-interface-between-political-parties/ http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/a-simplification-of-the-politics-economy-interface-between-political-parties/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:08:31 +0000 John F. Deethardt II http://emergent79.wordpress.com/?p=3577 ]]>

I. GENERAL WELFARE

Our two political parties are, at the base, parties of the economy issues. Economic issues are growths invading the tissues of political issues. Political leaders have to be surgeons to explain the prognosis of any political problem surviving an economic scalpel.

General Welfare is the basic political economy of the Democrats: GENERAL PUBLIC. This “welfare” has a Capitalized presence in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It is a Social Contract given, the contract that ties us all within the U.S. boundaries and territories together. That part implies, “We are all in this together.” Not YOYO. (You’re on your own.) Everyone benefits, the poor and the wealthy. But you know the poor will be the prime beneficiaries because they need so much more, especially in the general welfare providing for education, health care, security, sanitation and so on.

II. SPECIAL WELFARE

That is the basic political economy of the Republicans: PRIVATE. They can take from the general welfare if they wish, but their need to do that is almost non-existent. What they take is the elements of general welfare that they do not have to provide out of their private wealth, which is the infrastructure and security, which help them to generate and keep the fruits of their enterprise without having to build the roads and rails and support the armies and police that protect their safety.

The Owners and the Workers

If you break down our political system into two main parts, the owners of business enterprises need the federal government for different forms of support, as distinguished from the needs of the non-owners, or workers in those business enterprises.

One fact is, there are more workers in the population than there are owners. The workers should be favoring the party that wants to create more general welfare benefits for them, benefits that the more wealthy owners can easily provide for themselves with more highly specialized care in education and health. To me, that is a fact of nature, unquestionable.

If there is one vote for one person, then the more numerous votes should be coming from the workers who rely on the government provisions for general welfare.

The Two Political Parties

The government favored by the more wealthy would be one that favors the maximization of profits for all enterprises. “We profit-takers are all in this together.” The system is called the capitalistic system, and their political association to achieve their purposes has the name, “Republican”.

The government favored by the more needy of general welfare provisions is the one that provides benefits in the basics for staying healthy and improving skills and abilities. That system is called a social welfare system, providing upward mobility and the hope of achieving wealth.

It’s the difference between the penthouse and the stairway to the penthouse.

Let me inject the fact that the largest business-owner class is not the large business owner. The largest segment of all business owners is the small business owner, like the shop keeper. I never have been a business owner. I have only been a worker, in industry and education. So you might say, rightfully, “What in the hell does he know?” Well, I can read. I can read the right stuff. And I can patronize all levels of business and observe, astutely. I know people in big business and small, and they talk. So I have experience and an ability to analyze it.

But there are the wealthy distinguished from the enlightened wealthy. Some wealthy have realized that there is “enough” wealth. And other wealthy folks cannot stop amassing wealth by every means possible, and there is, for those, never “enough” of the stuff.

The maximization of profits can attain a functional autonomy. That is, the original motive was to become wealthy through private enterprise. However, when that motive achieved its goal, the motive became a drive continuing the accumulation of wealth upon wealth autonomous in its altered need for wealth, becoming wealth for wealth’s sake, beyond the original motive. The motive became a drive. That could be called, having wealth is okay but “greed is good”. Greed buys the goods of the super-wealthy. It’s millionaire, multi-millionaire and on to the billionaire class.

What is the point of injecting the profit motive into health care, for instance, if it is to make the lives of the workers (non-owners) more expensive in attaining health? Doctors are now beginning to refuse to take on Medicare patients, and they are also beginning to set up patients in “concierge” practices that require a set amount for the year to be paid in advance for access to a certain doctor. It is get the government out and capitalism in for maximizing the profits beyond general welfare standards.

All who have a “workers” interest in the Preamble-promised general-welfare guarantee that

W-A-I-T-T,
and reject the principle of
Y-O-Y-O
should carefully consider which political party has your best interests at heart.

I believe that I have adequately and accurately described a fundamental difference between the political parties, a difference that should influence every vote in the next election for prsident. In that decision, we will see a majority vote for, or against, the General Welfare of this United States society

I have only one vote. I have this means of expressing myself. For all those reasons for my conclusions, I, and as I would judge for all workers, and for enlightened capitalists, see no benefits for voting with the greed-capitalists in the Republican party. Rather I can only vote for the party with a “General Welfare” agenda for policy- and law-making, the Democrat candidates.


]]> http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/a-simplification-of-the-politics-economy-interface-between-political-parties/feed/ 3 Jack http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/an-embarassment-of-riches-or-dross-a-comment-on-comments/ http://emergent79.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/an-embarassment-of-riches-or-dross-a-comment-on-comments/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:19:26 +0000 John F. Deethardt II http://emergent79.wordpress.com/?p=3425 ]]>

{This has turned out to be like another “Dissertation upon Roast Pig” (Charles Lamb. 1822), in which the townspeople believed they had to burn down the town in order to enjoy roasted pig because in a town fire a pig got roasted and it was discovered that a pig roasted tasted pretty good. Only my discovery is that my essay has expanded to become a “Dissertation on Roast Spam” (JFD, 2011).}

Flattery is a compliment with ulterior motives.

A compliment is a reward given with the only motive being to pay a dividend for something pleasing having been given.

Nothing is gained by the giver of a compliment, except to see that the one complimented is pleased and delighted at being liked or admired for some appearance or performance. Complimenting is a one-way street, and those giving compliments should give satisfaction that they know that, and should take satisfaction that the receiver of a compliment overtly feels rewarded.

It is very difficult to determine in some cases what is compliment and what is flattery.

One burden on the giver of a complement is that there can be no doubt, making the complement pure as the driven snow. Any compliment should be, prima facie, sincere. Freely given.

One burden on the recipient of a complement is to discern the sincerity of the compliment. Most people would not want to have toadies around them, except those kings and princes and queens and celebrities who surround themselves with, or even hire, sycophants, lackies, adulators to feed their praise-starved highnesses.

When I write an essay for my blog, the first thing I want is “hits”, a sign that people are reading what I have written. The “hits” are recorded for each blog essay. Every writer of blogs wants to be read because they have motives that must be reinforced (or punished). Like Pavlov’s dogs, they salivate by responding first to the food reward, and then to the “ding” without the food. The first is the compliment of being “hit”. Because I am not a dog, I can discern compliments that have, perhaps, ulterior motives, the clicking on a web site URL. Then I am suspicious of the “comment”. The hits with comments condition the behavior of writing more essays if sincerity is detected. So here I am this dog with the suspicious “dings” so, in many cases, I go around salivating for nothing.

I have a “Comment” problem. It requires much valuable time to deal with. The comments on my blog essays are very flattering. I succumbed to the complements. I thought they were sincere, at first. “Sincerity” means “without wax”.

In the ancient marble quarries, people would come to buy chunks large and small of marble, for sculpting and other carving uses. Of course, they would prefer to have a piece without cracks and other blemishes. So the seller would doctor the cracks and blemishes by filling in and smoothing over the impurities with wax. The quary operator would call each piece for sale “sincere”, without wax, a perfect piece of marble. His way of saying “guaranteed”.

HOWEVER, the etymological dictionary says this: “There is no etymological justification for the common story that the word means ‘without wax’ (*sin cerae), and the stories invented to explain that folk etymology are even less plausible.”

(I have always thought that story made snse, so I believed it. I forget where I first read it, although I believe it was a reputable source. So I continue to stick with the “truth” of that story. I CAN BELIEVE WHAT I WANT! SO THERE!

The flattering comments are sort of like sugar coating the pill. What is the pill in some of the comments I have received? The pill is that particular author of the comment who has something to sell and advertise. If a lot of sincere people are reading a blog essay of mine, then it may occur to some in the entrepreneurial spirit to put up their web site on a comment to have a lot of people to go to the web site. Perhaps I should feel privileged, like one of those trees where huge flocks of birds gather to socialize of an evening. (I remember that phenomenon vividly.)

Here is an example:
[QUOTE]
Submitted on 2011/06/03 at 7:28 am
“The comments expressed in this article are very organized, well-researched and very easy to read. There’s no mistaking the points you are making. I agree.”
[END QUOTE]
That comment was attached to an article I very clearly did not write; it was written by George Bernard Shaw in 1905, and so described by me at the beginning of it.
Now why would someone do that!?

Another example:
On May 25, 2011 at 7:28 am whiplash compensation said:

“When I read good content I like to make sure I thank the writer, so thank you. Your article is well-written (of course) and just what I like to read.”
That was attached to this article I put on my blog:
[QUOTE]
Sen.-Elect Jim Webb’s Wall Street J. Op-Ed: CLASS STRUGGLE
[[[[[[[[--------------------------------

NOTE: John Deethardt, the administrator and author of this blog (The Deliberative Mind) thought you might be interested in this article from OpinionJournal, The Wall Street Journal

---------------------------------------------------
-----------------]]]]]]]]
[END QUOTE]
NOTICE THE “whiplash compensation” web site being touted. Is that stealth spam or not?
I erased the comment on that web page. If I have to do that on 60 comments per day, I have wasted a lot of time.

As I said, some legendary kings and princes “hired” flatterers, or could depend on toadies to do it regularly. Flattery can be addictive. Sincerity is hard to detect.

Other bloggers may have the same problem. I’d be happy to hear how they deal with this embarassment of riches.

BUT, in fact I have.

To wit:
“evolution travel lavoro said 10 hours ago:

Hello, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam remarks? If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can suggest? I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any help is very much appreciated.

[QUOTE]

“[JFD responds: Yes, I do. I just trash those that make little sense, or that merely want to post advertising, or that are not relevant to the blog essay to which they have been attached as a comment. The process takes a lot of time away from my writing. However, the comments mean a lot to me; they are goads to continue, rather than whips that would make me stop. I can imagine the unhappy opposite, the hate mail, and would not like it and would cease writing. I cannot help you. I have the same problem. But I feel responsible.]
[END QUOTE]

“Sincere” does mean candid, single-minded, frank, plain, flat smooth, even, level, as in
“Come on, level with me!”
And that is what I say about the comments by my writers-of-comments. Here, I am looking a gift horse in the mouth. (You all have heard that expression, haven’t you?) In all sincerity, are you pushing your product and sugar-coating with your comment the web site you want to advertise?

With my frustration in trying to judge whether or not a comment is flattery (talking nice with ulterior motives), or sincere, I have deleted a whole page of sixty comments today, one of them from “Madonna”.

I just went crazy, for a moment.

P.S. There are no answers here. I just wanted to get this weight off my chest. Thank you!

P.P.S. I think there is something fishy to have embedded in a post, “I’m gonna be careful for brussels.” Code words for something to somebody. Eh? Who knows? And another fishy thing is this: THE GREAT COMMENTS ARE NOTHING BUT “BOILER-PLATE” COMMENTS; THAT IS, THEY ARE DEFINITELY “CANNED”, “CARBON COPIES”, “NOT ORIGINAL WITH THE AUTHOR”, “CRIBBED”, “BORROWED FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE”. Fishy! Fishy! Fishy! Meaning, they have the stink of being copied and inserted automatically. I think you will find the same comments entered on other blogs, WORD FOR WORD. Fishy, eh?

Please! Somebody! Say it ain’t so! But my detective work, the way a historian works to apply internal criticism to documents tells me it is so. Good readers and writers know what I am talking about because they, of all people, would know about the “internals” of self-criticism and criticism in general.

P.P.P.S. I am sensitive to, and fearful of appearing as a narcissistic blogger. (Is that a redundancy? Could be!) Complements, to me, tell me I am on the right path and capable of continuing on. So I intend to keep on keeping on, by the friendly advice of my readers, to whom I am very thankful.


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