Defensive indifference

It's one of the finest phrases in baseball: defensive indifference. It's when a runner "steals" a base because no one on the opposing team gives a damn. They just let him run to the next base. Nobody even looks at him. Isn't that a great way to put it? Defensive indifference. It says so much.

Sadly, this term doesn't just apply to baseball. The end of civilization, and possibly the human race, is on the horizon because of defensive indifference. We're in the middle of a Great Extinction event right now. Species are disappearing at an insanely fast pace all over the world. In a hundred thousand years, when most species have gone extinct (including us, perhaps) it will be easy to look back at this era and see it accurately as the Great Dying. But on a daily level we don't even notice.

The problem is right in front of us and all the scientists are pointing at it and screaming "fire!" -- but we don't care. Why focus our attention on averting a death blow from climate change when we can waste our time cutting funding for poor people and making sure gay people can't get married? This is the nature of our defensive indifference: we deny the problem exists, do nothing to avert it and don't even think about it. So far, this is how we've "handled" the most serious problem we have ever faced: we shut the lights and made believe it wasn't there.

In effect, the human race is collectively engaging in defensive indifference. Our deaths are coming but we don't care. Our inaction in the face of such a colossal threat writes our epitaph and it is one that will be carved onto an Earth-sized gravestone:

"Here lies the human race. It went extinct through defensive indifference."

You know what's weird?

There are lots of pen and ink blogs. And why not? As an avowed stationery freak I totally understand the need to wax ecstatic about perfect pens, paper and notebooks. I've gotten some good leads on cool stuff by reading them.

But one thing that drives me crazy is that some of these bloggers buy notebooks and then wonder endlessly about what to do with them. They can't come up with one thing to write in their notebooks. Not one. It's true. They wax ecstatic over this or that model, buy it and then sigh and say they don't know how they'll ever "fill it up". As if it's a hamper or something, and you need to toss things into it, doesn't matter what, rocks maybe. They literally have nothing to say.

This freaks me out. How on Earth can someone find it hard to fill up a notebook? And is that the goal? Filling it up? Why not just smear ink on the pages if that's your aim? Voila. The book is "full".

Lack of creativity. It happens. But it's scary.

Blogger's transliteration tool

I was musing about this a moment ago, and a funny idea occurred to me. In case you're not on Blogger, this refers to the ability to have your blog translated into all sorts of languages. You just enable transliteration, click on a language and your blog becomes available in that language (or something; I'm not clear on this).

In any case, what I thought about was this: wouldn't it be fun if you could click on "British" and your blog would be "translated" into British? All your colors would be coloured, your defenses defenced. But what if it went beyond spelling and literally translated our American ways of saying things into common British usage?

Wouldn't that be wonderful? To read your own blog and see your folksy Americana translated into British slang? Surely someone will come up with the software to do this. I wish it existed now. I'd fetch a cup of tea and I expect I'd have a lovely sit-down with my new, posh blog. Oh, sod! The light's gone dark. Now, where'd I put that torch? I hope the charwomen didn't hoover it up. It's one of those teensy ones.

PS: If that got you in the mood, Wikipedia has a fun list of British words not used in America. I enjoyed the heck out of reading it.

New report from Department of Worries

Found this in the news today:

A new study published this week from The Netherlands states that having sex, blowing your nose or even drinking coffee can temporarily raise your risk of rupturing a brain aneurysm and suffering a stroke. 

Everyone just sit very still. Don't do anything. 

It's National Word Origins Day (i.e., Thursday). Woot!

Today's words come from Robert Hendrickson's excellent volume, "The Facts on File: Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins." Pick up a copy -- you'll be glad you did. Everything below comes from the pen of Mr. Hendrickson.

Knock! Knock! First recorded in about 1936, this appears to have originally been an American catchphrase used by someone about to tell a dirty story. Then it came into use by someone entering a room without knocking. Perhaps it is from the old schoolboy joke "Knock! Knock! Who's there? Grandpa. Whaddya want . . ." But one writer claims it may come from the Porter's scene in Macbeth (Act II. Scene iii): "Knock, knock, knock! Who's there . . . Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name . . . Knock, knock, knock! Who's there? Knock, Knock! Never at quiet! . . ."

Straight from the shoulder. The expression means honestly, frankly, and to the point and derives from a boxing term of the mid-19th century. A punch straight from the shoulder was once made by bringing the fist to the shoulder and sending it forward straight and fast. Such undeceptive blows are quick, effective, and often to the point of the chin.

Figurehead. Ship figureheads are carved figures or busts attached below the bowsprit directly over the cutwater. They have great ornamental value, but no function whatsoever and the ships would sail just as well without them. The carvings do inspire pride and confidence among seamen, however, and lend prestige to ships. Thus, figurehead has been used for at least a century to describe "a person who normally heads an organization, who lends his good name to it, but has no real duties in it."

Give a damn. The above was originally "I don't give a dam," the expression probably brought back to England from India by military men in the mid-18th century. A dam was an Indian coin of little value. I don't give a damn is first recorded in America in the 1890s. Its most famous use was in Gone with the Wind (1939) when Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O'Hara: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Divan. Divan has an involved but logical history. Originating as a Persian word meaning "a brochure," it came to mean, in order: "a collection of poems"; "a register"; "a military pay book"; "an account book"; "a room in which an account book was kept"; "an account office or custom house"; "a court"; "a great hall"; and finally, by 1597, "the chief piece of furniture in a great hall"!

This atheist's spirituality

I used to say that spirituality was a word without meaning. And in most senses, I still stick by this statement. There really is no such thing. But there are feelings that seem spiritual.

I realized this when I was helping my sister raise my nephews. Protecting them, caring for them, even feeding them -- was a spiritual experience. When I gave the children water, it quenched my thirst. And when I saw them sleeping, I was less tired. Giving to them fortified me and that experience seemed spiritual. Something came over me, a role defined by evolution, and I slipped into this comfortable, ancient garment with ease. We all do (or most of us, anyway) when the time comes. So in a sense, parenting is a spiritual thing.

But it's not supernatural; nothing is. These feelings are the result of chemicals being produced within our bodies, and genes being switched on in response to a birth in our proximity. Evolution came up with this "spiritual" gambit to get us to rear our young. (Not really, of course; evolution has no intentions or goals, but in effect this statement is true.) These feelings are nothing more than a tool of nature, and it's a tool that works. Just look around you at all the defenseless children who manage to survive in this odd world of ours. This parenting/spirituality must be some strong juju.

But the kind of spirituality I hear people talking about all the time? Nonsense. They're looking at paintings inside their heads. The only spirituality in this world is the sort that nature provides. And you know what? It's enough.

Baseball's "backwards talk"

One day in the Magic Land of Baseball -- though no one can say which day it was, definitively -- a sportscaster did something very odd. He started talking backwards. And like a viral meme, this strange way of speaking took over the Magic Land of Baseball, where it thrives to this day.

What the heck am I talking about? Here are some examples:

"And back to the bag at first, is Ellsbury!"

"Very sharp tonight, is Chris Young."

Get the idea? Seriously, how could such a trend catch on? It's not like it sounds good. It's not like it's easier to say. It's just dumb. But does that stop them?

"He's got an idea up there for sure, does young Zimmerman."
"And trying to keep it a three-run spread, is Jordan Smith!"

It's insane. They do this in every game.

"Stayed back on it, did Ike."

"Almost throwing the ball away, was Runzler!"

C'mon guys, seriously. Listen to yourselves. How did a thing like this ever get started? Anyway, just one more odd thing about the language of baseball: backwards talk.