TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Charlie Brooker | Buzzwords for blowhards Rightwingers are brilliant at creating snappy-but-misleading nicknames – like fun-size chocolate bars and the Ground Zero mosqueAt this point in human development, I think we can all look back on what we've achieved and agree that language is one of our better inventions – better even than Wi-Fi, the Dustbuster, and Super Mario Galaxy. Picture a world without language. Go on. No gossip. No chit-chat. No road signs. No newspapers. No theatre. No internet. The only forms of mass media entertainment available are slapstick and pornography. Hang on, it's brilliant. I must be describing it wrongly.But then, that's the beauty of language. It can change the way you see things without actually altering anything in the physical realm. It turns good into bad and bad into good and back again without anyone lifting a finger.Take "fun-size" chocolate bars. They're tiny. Gone in a single bite. They don't last as long as a regular chocolate bar. Being individually wrapped, they're fiddly and environmentally unfriendly. And pound for pound, they're more expensive than their standard counterparts. But, back in the mists of time, some genius decided to label them "fun-size". And it worked. As a kid, the mere sight of a bag of fun-size Mars bars could work me into a flurry of excitement. These were dinky novelties you could eat! Hooray for fun-size!But the magic of language didn't end there. As well as instantly transforming each and every shortcoming of these miniscule snacks into a thrilling bonus, the sly association of the word "fun" with the concept of "small helpings" had the side-effect of making regular-size chocolate bars seem less decadent, less naughty by comparison. If little ones were fun, regular ones were pedestrian slabs of edible workload.Some time later, of course, king-size Mars bars hit the market, thus imbuing an act of calorific gluttony with an unwarranted air of imperial glamour. This was an imposing, statesmanlike snack to be reckoned with; a nougat mothership; the Mars bar of royalty. Language had worked its magic once again.Anyway, I bring all this up because I've been thinking some more about the "Ground Zero mosque" debate. Specifically, I've been thinking about the horrible brilliance of the opponents' endlessly parroted, emotionally charged phrase "Ground Zero mosque", used to describe something which – at the risk of regurgitating last week's column – isn't at Ground Zero and isn't a mosque.Conservatives, generally, are far more adept at politically reframing concepts by giving them snappy-but-misleading nicknames than liberals. "Loony left". "Boom-and-bust". "Flip-flop". "Ground Zero mosque". All simplifications or outright lies – but they worked. Like advertisers, the right seems breezily unconcerned about the truth of the slogan, provided it rings up a sale. They slap the words "fun-size" on the packaging and wait for the public to buy it.The left, meanwhile, tends to respond by flinging back tired old insults. Bastards! Fascists! Racists! This is wrong on several counts. For one thing, it's counter-productive. Nothing riles an anti-mosque demonstrator more than being called a bigot. It's a grotesque, misleading smear on a diverse group of individuals – a bit like claiming all Muslims are terrorists (which, coincidentally, the guy beside them is currently doing through a loudhailer). But worse than being insulting, it's just plain unimaginative. At least the right bothers to invent a new buzzword each time it wants to fart some monstrous new lie into the ecosystem. And they're often infuriatingly well-crafted buzzwords – combining impact with audacious disingenuousness. There must be an evil Don Draper tucked away somewhere coining these things, these catchy fibs, these deceptive jingles.Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms. But then I realised that "molehill mountaineer" could equally be applied to many on the left too. So that's no good.Then I tried to invent a shorthand term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who claims to be a patriot, not a bigot, then immediately muddies the water by saying lots of bigoted things. It's possible to be a patriot without being a bigot, just as it's possible to be a weather forecaster without being a stripper, but if a weather forecaster took her clothes off halfway through a forecast, its fair to say the striptease element of her performance would greatly overshadow any meteorological merit. Still, a lot of people erroneously believe that saying "I'm a patriot" automatically absolves them from any and all charges of bigotry. And the best word I could come up with to describe these people was "Patrigot". I quite like it, but it won't catch on. Too clumsy.Which is a pity. Because in today's 2,000mph technological freefall, he who coins the catchiest buzzword generally wins the debate by default. Few people have the time to delve beyond the ticker-tape headline, to discover the reality behind a misleading brandname such as "Ground Zero mosque". There's a famous propaganda technique known as "the big lie": the bigger the lie you tell, the more the public will believe it. But today's audience is too distracted to digest big lies. Now the trick is to cram as much misleading information as possible into a succession of tiny verbal snacks, inaccurate but memorable.In other words: Lies aren't big any more. They're fun-sized.LanguageAdvertisingCharlie Brookerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Strengthening La Nina could mean more hurricanes By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID 2010-09-09T17:21:36ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- The La Nina climate phenomenon is strengthening, increasing the likelihood an active hurricane season could get even busier.... hosted.ap.org |
Soyuz capsule lands in Kazakh steppe with 3 aboard By PETER LEONARD 2010-09-25T19:26:25ZALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts who lived six months on the International Space Station touched down safely, but one day late, Saturday morning in the cloudy, central steppes of Kazakhstan.... hosted.ap.org |
Mystery Bird: Reddish egret, Egretta rufescens | GrrlScientist In my opinion, this fascinating and amusing little bird should instead be given the common name, "the dancing egret" – includes video that shows why I think this (do you agree?)Reddish Egret, Egretta rufescens, photographed at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary, close to the towns of Freeport and Lake Jackson on the upper Texas coast, USA. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]Image: Joseph Kennedy, 29 September 2010 (would you like to see this bird using a 'scope?).Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/400s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400Question: At first glance, this elegant species might appear to be impossible to ID from this particular photograph, but this pose is part of the typical behaviours shown by just one of the several closely related species found in this location. What is that behaviour and what species is this?Response: This is a reddish egret, Egretta rufescens, in the process of spearing its lunch. Most herons and egrets are sit-and-wait hunters, but not this species. Reddish egrets (which I think should be known as "dancing egrets"), are often seen stalking or running after their prey in shallow water. After it locates a fish, it spreads its wings to create a shadow on the surface of the water to reduce glare (or it might be spreading its wings to recover its balance?). This is a lovely dance to watch, one that delights plenty of people who see it. Below is an amateur video that captures the "dancing" fishing behaviour of the reddish egret:If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and appreciate audience, feel free to email them to me for consideration.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Green: Groups Rally Behind Grannis Looking toward the post-Paterson days, some environmental advocates are proposing a successor to the fired environmental commissioner: Pete Grannis himself. feeds.nytimes.com |