Unless, you know, it’s one of those friendly zombies.*

In the spirit of this fine holiday, I offer you this:

Oh no! The ghost was actually a zombie in disguise! Have fun, all.

*may not exist.

A bad idea: take one large, toothy, and potentially maneating predator, and combine it with another large,  toothy, and potentially maneating predator to make an even bigger toothy, potentially maneating predator.

A zookeeper in Tulsa learned this lesson the hard way when he was attacked by Rocky the Liger, a lion/tiger hybrid. Somewhere, a Jurassic Park-era Jeff Goldblum is shaking his head and saying “I told you so.”

For their part, The Association of Zoos and Aquariums does not condone the practice of cross-breeding deadly animals. The wildlife sanctuary where the attack took place is not accredited by the AZA.

So, amateur geneticists take note: if you’re going to pervert nature for fun and/or profit, make sure you give the resulting monster a wide bearth. No hugs, no high fives, and certainly no communal bathing.

In his seminal essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell makes this observation:

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

And so it has been with the 2008 Presidential Election. While a great many things- on both sides- have irritated me, I find the McCain campaign’s frequent abuse of language to be the most egregious. The Republican ticket, and VP candidate Sarah Palin in particular, are fond of stripping precise meaning from words and throwing the resulting linguistic neuters around like heavy stones. They hope the emotional connotations of their speech will do the work, and that their audience is too stupid to recognize language abuse when they see it.

So far, McCain and his disgraceful running mate seem to be getting away with it. Take their use of the word “socialism”. They attempt to paint Obama as a socialist, or even a communist, based on his economic policies. Now, it is a long walk from Obama’s plan to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy to anything even remotely resembling ’socialism’. This term means something specific. It has a defined historical origin and implies a very particular way of thinking about and organizing society. Anyone who calls Obama a socialist either has a horrendous understanding of the term, or is trying to deceive their audience. With McCain and Palin, it appears to be a little of both.

Here’s why this bugs me. Meaningful communication depends on shared semiotic understanding. If we don’t agree on what words mean, or if we actively attempt to distort their meaning, then communication becomes impossible. If we want to have a real conversation about Obama’s economic policy, or socialism for that matter, then we need to be precise in our use of language. If we aren’t, then Sarah Palin’s winking deceit is able to pass unchallenged.

Incidentally, this criticism cuts both ways. When someone calls George W. Bush a fascist, they are committing a similar language crime as those who hurl the socialist epithet at Obama. Again, “fascism” refers to something specific. Bush may have presided over any number of anti-democratic policies, but he’s a long way off from Mussolini, Franco or Hitler. To suggest otherwise is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty.

So, before I leap to my death in a fit of frustration, stay vigilant. If you want to criticize a politician, use the right words in the right context. When language is perverted to make a political point,  our ability to talk about politics at all is damaged. With a crowd of  urgent political issues looming large on the horizon, this is a denigration we cannot afford.

Fascinating new research has revealed something interesting about the neurological processes behind hatred. Sure, it does the thing you’d expect, like activating the aggression centre and the motor cortex, presumably lay some hurt down. But it also increases your judgement and ability to reason what people may do next. Quoth the study:

What seems not to be in doubt is that this cortical zone involves the premotor cortex, a zone that has been implicated in the preparation of motor planning and its execution. We hypothesize that the sight of a hated person mobilizes the motor system for the possibility of attack or defense. In addition, the involvement of the frontal pole considered to be critical in predicting the action of others, arguably an important feature when confronted by a hated person . . . it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge.

In addition, the level of brain activity seems to be proportional to the intensity of hatred for a given person. To wit: hate is actually quantifiable. If you put me in a room with John Mayer, my brain activity would be slightly elevated. If you put me in a room with Ann Coulter, I should be able to see through time.

Of course, given my propensity to develop burning hatred for everything from toasters to the Toronto Transit Commission to Sarah Palin, you’d think I’d be a goddamn genius by now. 

So, next time somebody says to you, “dude, don’t be a hater”, reply as snidely as you can, ”Or what? I’ll kick your ass in a game of chess?”

On second thought, don’t do that. Via i09.

As I sit here, day after day, writing this humble journal, I wonder: does anybody read this thing? Do they like what I write about? And, do these shoes go with my pants?

So, using the magic of interweb technology, I’ve assembled two little polls. Please take the time to fill them out. Hopefully, it will help make Nunc Scio a more edifying experience for everyone involved.

Click through to take the survey. Read the rest of this entry »

After 19 years of making fun of Canada’s political and social elite (such as they are), Frank Magazine is closing up shop. Said publisher Michael Bate:

“It’s time to fold it up. It’s not a business model that works any more. There was a time when Frank would break stories and print information you just couldn’t find anywhere else. Those off-the-record stories and stories that used to be among the media or a small political elite, now …are on the internet.”

Damn you, Internets. You’ve done it again.

I didn’t really read Frank, but its demise is still significant as a herald for the coming print meltdown. In the face of declining subscriptions and web competition, Canadian newspapers are going to go exclusively online or disappear altogether. Frank, with a somewhat limited audience when compared to the broadsheet dailies, is just the first casualty.

Watch what happens when a local news anchor asks Smilin’ Joe questions apparently written by McCain flacks:

I think Biden shows an impressive amount of restraint here, and his response at 1:05 is gold. For her part, this anchor seems to believe that ‘journalism’ is a mishmash of discredited smears and a tenuous grasp of Marxism, Sweden, and indeed, reality. Here’s the dead giveaway:

“Isn’t Senator Obama’s comment a potentially crushing political blunder?”

No, but if you believe hard enough, and use enough purple language, maybe it will be in some magical fairyland.

This is an evocative reminder that their are two basic types of journalists in the world: the basically intelligent, who demonstrate at least the rudiments of inquisitive thought, and the ‘actors’, who do their best gravitas impression but are actually morons.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the second variety.