Butch and Sundance — Quiz Time #2

Butch & Sundance - Quiz Time. #2

June 21, 2020|CAMPAIGN

I've tended to be a literalist frequently and sometimes too often. In high school, I would leave the library by the Emergency Exit door, which was a definite shortcut to the central quadrangle, rather than going through the hallways. Lots of kids did this.

One time - I think in 12th grade - one of the vice principals was standing just outside the door in the Quad. He asked me - I don't remember his exact words - why I was using the Emergency Exit, and did I think there was an emergency? Something like that. I told him that the sign didn't say Emergency Exit Only, so it was ok to use it. He said, "are you being smart with me?" which I knew meant smartass, insolent, sarcastic. I said No. Because I wasn't being a smartass. There wasn't an "only" in the sign, so I could use the door. I told him that. The door wasn't armed with an alarm, and there was no siren or bell when you opened it. And lots of students used the door with no siren or bell sounding.

I then said to him, that lots of students use the door.

So you know what he said next, right? He said, "So if your friends were jumping off a cliff, you would jump too, huh?

Now, I had actually given that considerable thought ever since Butch and Sundance went "Wo-wo-wo shiiiiiiiiiiii---- ." I saw the movie when I was in 6th grade. I went with my neighbor for his birthday party. I just now watched Butch and Sundance jump on newtube - the first time since I saw the movie again in college. I don't remember the jump scene from the college movie-screening, only Katherine Ross.

So, ever since 6th grade when I saw Butch and Sundance jump, I had thought that if I held back and watched carefully where my hypothetical Butch or Sundance friend (or conspirator) entered the water - but I was still able to see if he came up from underwater and was ok - then if I managed my takeoff and aerodynamics so as to hit the water right where he had (provided he had moved a bit), then I might jump too. A bit involved but theoretically possible.

I hadn't yet had 7th grade General Science when I saw Butch and Sundance. I hadn't yet heard the term, "fovea," but I could tell, as anyone who pays attention can tell, that there's a relatively small central area of really clear vision in each eye. I figured there would be a problem if my friend drifted too far downstream before he surfaced, so I might lose track of exactly where he entered the water. Clearly, there were a number of variables that couldn't be controlled. But if there's a posse right behind you, jumping - especially if one has the data point of your friend's jump - was worth considering.

So I answered the vice principal's question with, "maybe." He then really thought I was sarcastic when I wasn't sarcastic at all. I don't remember whether he sent me to the office, but the junior high vice principal once did. I think I even got detention once in junior high. I was an out-of-control terror ripe for reform school.

My point here is that the vice principal was sure I was sarcastic when I wasn't sarcastic at all.

Quiz #2.0 Read the following from some Daniel Dale at CNN

(https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/politics/fact-check-trump-disinfectant-sarcastic/index.html): “Facts First: Trump was not being "sarcastic" on Thursday when he raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant. There was simply NO INDICATION that he was being anything less than serious.”

If you do not understand that there is something wrong with this Daniel Dale's ability to distinguish between fact and opinion, then vote for someone else, not me. You deserve what you’ll get.

If this Daniel Dale makes sense to you - that "NO INDICATION of" something to someone means it is a fact that what that person is looking for does not exist - then then vote for someone else, not me, and lots of luck to you. Sorry to sound so harsh but, as I already said in blog entry Quiz #1, "I'm assuming here that you don't want to be treated like an idiot and that you believe you deserve the opposite of such treatment." And that I'm not going to grub for votes by going for the least common denominator (or even below) by ignoring such tripe as from this Daniel Dale.

On January 15, 2018, one hundred heroes went out at night to search for me in what they said was the worst cold and wind in 50 years. After my plane crashed and they were out there in the cold, there was NO INDICATION that I really was where they were looking. But they kept looking for me for three hours and found me.

A friend of mine from high school, when he was 32, descended Mt. Shasta via "the “Hottun” snowfield, got off-route with his climbing partner and fell/slid 50+ meters through the blue ice chute and over a series of cliffs and ledges onto the body of the Hotlum glacier at 3700 meters. When other climbers reached the pair, one was dead and one was believed to have a faint pulse but died shortly thereafter." That is from a mountain rescue account, online. I've thought about my friend...such as one time after work when were sitting on the steps of Bldg. 2 NIH, Laboratory of Chemical Physics when we were summer students there, the summer after my college junior year. Another time, I'll tell you about our conversation. I've thought about him when I've flown by and around Mt. Shasta, which I've done maybe three dozen times. I know that mountain pretty well.

The rescuers were too late for my friend and his climbing partner. I had had 28 years more than my friend when I unknowingly flew into a January cloud at night at 9000'.

The commander, Martin Vigil, of those Santa Fe, NM teams of heroes - every one of them a hero - wrote to me (see Dues Process I for full email):

"John, I have thought of you many times this past year. ... I am starting my forty eighth year in emergency services. Ironically as a thirteen year old cadet in the New Mexico Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, one of my first rescues was a downed aircraft. During these forty-eight years, I have been a Paramedic and EMS Educator, a structural/wildland firefighter, a police sergeant and a critical care nurse. I have seen more than my share of human tragedy. John, I do not know if you are a spiritual person; but if there is any validation of guardian angels it would have to be your crash. So many things were not in your favor. The night of the 15th, was the darkest, coldest night (wind chill) I can remember in Santa Fe County. The original cell phone pings gave coordinates from El Dorado to LaBajada. We threw two rescue packages consisting of multiple agencies into the San Marcos basin. ... I believe I came near you twice before we you were (randomly) found by Sheriff Deputies. You could only see within the diameter of our spotlights or headlights, nothing beyond. ... I deployed Fire suppression equipment due to the fuel which had seeped into the fuselage."

There's Martin in command.

"Randomly found." Each one of them was a hero (certainly in my book and by any definition accounting for probability) because: 1) each one went out in the worst weather; and 2) if each one had not been searching the path he or she had been searching - random or not - the positions along that path could not have been ruled out as having been "searched." That's called teamwork. Heroes understand teamwork. Commanders who put their lifetime service on the line - and sacrifice it because they go to the mat for those they command - understand teamwork. Bureaucracies, which are inherently political, including military bureaucracies, can forget what teamwork means, out where it's really cold.

So this Daniel Dale's statement - that "There was simply NO INDICATION that DJT was being anything less than serious” - was NOT a fact. It was just this Daniel Dale's opinion. I shouldn't have to explain that, but apparently this Tapper-Dale and CNN don't understand what high-school students, who pay attention, understand. Why anyone would pay attention to Tapper-Deal is a mystery to me. This is independent of what you think of DJT.

This Tapper-Dale is a know-nothing. Its employer CNN employs a know-nothing and apparently gives it a lot of space and airtime. But this Tapper-Dale cannot make the simple distinction between a "fact" and an opinion. However any reasonable person exactly defines a "fact," Tapper-Dale calling DJT a "liar," because there was "no indication" he was sarcastic, is just its opinion. Tapper wrote (https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/politics/jake-tapper-trump-comments-cnntv/index.html): "And then the President undermined his own press secretary by claiming he had been sarcastic and he was challenging reporters, which was just a bald-faced lie." That was Tapper linking to Dale's "fact check." (Lawyers and judges do this same sort of thing, pointing to baloney that has been "decided" to support their baloney.)

If the rescuers had given up because "it was a fact" that I was not anywhere in the area because there was "simply NO INDICATION," over the their search paths, that I was there, then I would have frozen to death in the next hour (they told me).

Formally, Tapper-Dale's NO INDICATION "fact" is described in the “no way José” syllogism in Aristotle's Peripatetics, in which Aristotle told the Tapper-Dales to take a long walk off a short pier: All CNN reporters believe they are Vulcans and can read minds with the mind meld. José is not a Vulcan but passed high-school math. Therefore, there’s no way José can work for CNN because José passed high-school math and also knows he's not a Vulcan.

And BTW, if you think that there’s any relevant distinction between the vice principal's thinking I was sarcastic when I wasn’t - and Tapper-Dale concluding a fact that “Trump lies” when he said he was sarcastic and Tapper-Dale thinks (singular, joined at the one-cell cerebrum) there was “no indication” that DJT “was being sarcastic” - then please think harder. Mind reading is mind reading and "facts" - however you may view a "fact" - are not formed by mind reading. Again, regardless of what you may think of DJT (and I support him strongly, even though he has done some things that have hurt me personally, certainly in the short term; you should evaluate the logic of what I will say soon about DJT, and you should evaluate the illogic of Tapper-Dale), you cannot conclude that "Trump lied" about his sarcasm statement because to you, "There was simply NO INDICATION that he was being anything less than serious.” Tapper-Dale cannot mind-read and neither can you. Tapper-Dale has an opinion, not a fact. So much of all the "fact check" stuff is out in left field, if you take the time to read it.

Please read and think. I do want your vote. Long shots can beat the odds. Just ask Martin and hundreds of others.

Tapper-Dales are why getting involved in politics is what requires the true disinfectant. It's a close call between freezing to death and having the likes this Tapper-Dale anywhere in the conversation. But my heart breaks over those photos of Mr. Shaver and his daughters, and for Mr. Floyd's daughter. So I'm going to keep making my points.

And I also remember what my grandma said to me...If you can keep your head when all about you, including Little Anthony, are going out of theirs and are meaner than a rudyard dog named Leroy, you’ll get a Man-O-Manischewitz matzah ball.

And there's also this above all: "to thine own self be true," said Polynomialus to his little np, who got down on his knees and begged Ophelia please not to go to Hamburger Hamlet because their burgs were not consistent and you just don't know, "Thou canst not use a double negative to try to be both true and false - make up your mind - for any solution in your computational space."