Scientific proof that Democrats ignore facts.

I guess I should have include William Jefferson Clinton in the picture with her. Is that what you mean?

 

:blink:

Oh, for Pete's sake, Malorn! I thought that was YOU! :lol:

Leave the fool of a chick alone. She's making a living off the notoriety given her by folks like you.

Wasn't going to say anthing as long as I thought that was a picture of you but since it isn't...Ugh! That photo is offending what little artistic sensibility I have.

 

Didn't she have her own talk show for a short time?

 

Regardless of facts (repeatedly confirmed observations) our political system operates on political expediency. Our collective use of rhetoric often confuses the terms "evidence" and "belief". Evidence is peer-reviewed, repeatable and confirmed by many. Belief is an act of faith. All politicians must act on faith to a large extent.

 

I don't believe that you're getting what I'm saying

 

Spunky, the description of your father indicates he is an artist. You are thinking of 'artist' in the traditional sense, not the literal sense.

I am a computer programmer. I write carefully thought-out code to accomplish goals quickly and effectively, spending alot of time making the code elegant and good. This is my art.

 

I'd like to teach the world to sing...in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a coke, and keep it company.

 

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

'Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

'Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, 'for to get their wages, you know.'

(Alice didn't venture to ask what he paid them with; so you see I can't tell you.)

'You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

'Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. 'I can explain all the poems that ever were invented just yet.'

***
Humpty continues with nonsense interpretations and explanations of the poem. Carroll's writing is brilliant. He makes this point: It's confusing and therefore irresponsible to mutate the meanings of words to suit. A poet might indulge on occasion but certainly someone writing an essay should not.

(Used to work with executives who used Humpty's form of mental masturbation. The practice left many around scratching our heads, and the indulgers with hairy imaginations)

Satire is fun but Carroll's point should be taken. Words are tools that should be used to clarify.

The first two responses to this topic prove my point. Neither poster read the article referred to. Nor did they read the article's title. If they had, they would have immediately realized the research findings were non-partisan.

Writers owe basic honesty to their readers, to not deliberately mislead them.

***

One should love and take pride in one's work. Fine craftsmen are rare. But there are differences between craftsmen and artists. Artists strive to master their technique so they can range beyond accepted practice to express the demon (in the old Greek sense) within. They push boundaries, take chances, attempt to communicate a vision.

The Duke estate in Somerville, NJ is surrounded by miles of stone walls. Doris Duke and her father imported laborers from Italy to dig, haul, dress, and fit the stones together. It was a massive project, took many years and called on the talents of immigrants and the support of their families. I love those walls and the stone homes the workers built in town and hope they are never torn down.

Went to Florence, Italy three years ago. Walked circles around and around Michelangelo's David. Took in the veins under the skin of his hands, the relaxed smooth swell of muscled flank, his determined gaze. Everything of this young man's life was concentrated in this moment, carved in white stone, captured in time. Found myself wiping tears from my face.

I imagine Duke's stone cutters greeting their Michelangelo, offering him glasses of their home-made wine, holding his broken hands in theirs and kissing them. They would have no doubts of who were the justly proud craftsmen and who was the artist.

Sorry folks but it's not okay to feel free to take on titles for ourselves. It's good to strive to be excellent craftsmen. But don't steal the title of artist from those deserving of it. They have it hard enough as it is.

 

I still believe that you're not getting what we're saying here. We don't go around calling ourselves artists.

 

Suffering, the first two replies were from folks who didn't read the article or its title. People can be lazy and many fail to do their "homework".

I'd say it was an honest mistake on your part, that you assumed a catchy title would justify any misunderstandings by readers. But the title did not spur them to a particular action, as you meant it to. Catchy titles, on pieces that fail to deliver, lead to disappointed readers who feel as though they were "had".

***

Never opened "My Old Girlfriend...". Are you saying it's worth the read?

Sorry but I don't know what you mean by "ration".

 

"The first two responses to this topic prove my point. Neither poster read the article referred to. Nor did they read the article's title. If they had, they would have immediately realized the research findings were non-partisan.

Writers owe basic honesty to their readers, to not deliberately mislead them."

Well what if you want to be mislead?

It proves nothing regarding this supposed responsibility you would like writers to have. I didn't read it because I simply didn't care. I made that judgment call given the title of the topic composed by the author, misleading or not, it did not matter. It is MY responsibility to make a judgment call upon his work.

The author has zero, zip, nada, no responsibility, it lies totally upon the reader. Now, IF the author chooses to be taken seriously, respected, or whatever, amongst a group of readers, THEN it's in their interest to be responsible to the audience, but it's certainly not something they OWE.

See, what's obnoxious about this, is someone trying to frame "writing". Frame something totally sujective, thrust their own guidelines upon it.

This wreaks of a pretentious Professor I had in college once for Expository Writing. I remember the look on his face when I got up on stage (we had to get up and read our essays in front of class lol) and started my essay with the following sentence, "The ball was bouncing in the strobe light, I was screaming." :lol:

It sounds like you're saying something like:

People shouldn't lie
People shouldn't write misleading things
People shouldn't (insert anything here)

Well, they do, and it's up to YOU to decipher what you consider BS or not.

 

Oh, so I'm effectively lazy for not reading an article I had no interest in?

:lol:

 

What if he intentionally misleads you and says "it's a crappy read, don't bother...".
Whose fault is it if you miss out?

 

So many people have given up their ability to think for themselves. They like to be led...or mislead. Discovering the truth takes time. You would have to research, ask questions, get deep down and personal at times.
I also will speed read something before I commit to indepth reading. I could miss something important that way but I also don't believe everything I read, hear or see. In this high tech media savvy world it is too easy to mislead in any of these forms.

 

Potential Buyer does consider him/her self an artist, using computer programing as his/her medium.

And Mys. Squid said, "Writing is as subjective as any other art form." Will have to ask him if he considers our writings here on PC, as art, and if art is somehow beyond being judged as good or bad.

Each reader or observer must judge for themselves. What's art to me could well look like crap to someone else.
Hemingway's dialogue out of "Hills Like White Elephants", a great, great, short story, runs like this:
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have evertyhing."
"No, we can't."
"We can have the whole world."
"No, we can't."
"We can go everywhere."
"No, we can't. It isn't ours anymore."
"It's ours."
"No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back."
"But they haven't taken it away."
"We'll wait and see."
This is not out of a script for a movie. It's a short story's dialogue between a young man and a young woman. The bulk of the story is dialogue. Read it in high school and didn't understand what the heck they were talking about. Read it again last year and my hand went over my mouth. I was horrified by the undercurrents, by what was covered by dialogue. It's art. I couldn't appreciate it until after a few decades had gone by.

 

It's ok, Spunky, no concept is clear to everyone. The main thing is that we're all civil and friendly even if we don't entirely get each other. There are some things that have been explained to me a zillion times and I still don't get it. That's life I guess

 

For what is worth Sufferin' I thought you did a brilliant job of illustrating the point of the article. A reading of your first post makes it clear you weren't trying to make Democrats or Republicans look bad.

By the way, everyone can fall victim to cognitive confirmation biases. It ain't just politicians! Yeap, even Toyota may be falling to these biases.

 

haha, this is a GREAT topic...

What I consider art, is what Iconsider art.

Mainstream society likes to tell you what art is. They also like to tell what is good art/what is bad.

I leave my personal definition of art undefined.

And yes, I would consider writings here on PC as art, in one form or another. What I might think of this art, is up to me and any of my three eyes...

Perhaps as an example, let's take the Mona Lisa. Many consider that fine art. Who is to tell me what I consider fine art? Perhaps I like an elaborate spray-painting on the side of a building better than the Mona Lisa...

I'll give you another example, all art work in my home is either pictures I've taken, pictures other people have taken, or paintings I've found either walking down the street, or others I have come across in a variety of other ways. One thing they are NOT though, is what the general populace considers art. There are no Monet reproductions or anything of that sort. Now, if I come across a reproduction of any "fine artist" that I happen to like, I would get it, but I have to like it...

 

First, sorry you were abused by a writing prof in college. Did you deliberately write something you knew would displease him or was not at all part of the assignment?

If they want to be read, writers do have to keep in mind the needs of their readers (time, reading abilities, expectations based on genera). Most writers do take their writing seriously, as if it's part of their souls they're exposing on paper. This is not being pretentious, it's part of having your work "count".

Remember that writer whose memoirs have turned out to be fabrications? Million Pieces of something or other was his work. His readers feel betrayed.

If a writer wants to write fiction, then they should publish it as such. If someone wants to be trusted as a serious writer of history, they must do their research and it had better be of top quality. Memoirs are supposed to be memoirs, based on the actual occurances in the authors life.

I feel ripped off as a reader if a writer misrepresents their stuff with, say, a catchy title or deliberately mis-quotes or mis-interprets a source. If I were the researchers who did the study and released their results only to have the work mis-represented by others, I'd be extremely upset and would consider lawsuits.

Sufferin' did select a good article to discuss. It contains evidence in support of a serious topic. The work deserved to be published and read. But Sufferin' went about it "dishonestly", slurring the work. The posting of the topic fed existing prejudices.