Polygon, the Dancing Bear

Occasional notes on politics, history, technology, architecture,
and the life of a county clerk

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Current entries

Thursday, January 26, 2006, 1:18 pm

From the Clerk-Register. Last Monday's message to my staff.

It has happened to all of us: an alarming message arrives in email. Often, it is forwarded by a friend or relative. Sometimes it warns of a dangerous new computer virus, or a scary new scam used by criminals. Other times, it brings news of a previously unknown threat to our health, or warns that the government is about to do something really nasty to us. Frequently, it calls upon the reader to pass along the message to others.

Experience with email and the Internet has taught most of us not to trust such messages, or to check it on an urban legends web site like snopes.com. But millions of people do take these messages seriously, and are motivated to forward them on to alert their friends and relatives, spreading false information and needless alarm.

As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes" — and that was long before the Internet was created.

But even without email, rumors — true or not — spread with astonishing speed among a population that is interested and willing to believe them. We would all, I think, be surprised if we could hear all the things others are saying about us. In the process of passing from person to person, the interesting or alarming aspects of any story become exaggerated little by little, and something which started out as a piece of factual news can become distorted almost beyond recognition.

We don't have a useful web site like Snopes to check out rumors about the county government or our co-workers. But a little common sense goes a long way. The more interesting a rumor is, the more important it is to ask the teller how he or she knows. Remember that your own personal credibility is hurt when you disseminate a rumor that turns out to be false.

The temptation to share news about our co-workers' lives can seem irresistible, but imagine the person who is the subject of the rumor listening in on the conversation. How would you feel if you were in his or her shoes? Even if it has a grain of truth, is it something you'd want people to be talking about?

Just as we are with email, let us be calm, sensible, and skeptical about unverified news we hear from our friends, co-workers, and customers.

The chief deputies and I are in East Lansing until Wednesday, meeting with other county officers from around the state.

Let's have a great week!

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Monday, January 9, 2006, 5:11 pm

From the Clerk-Register. Today's message to my staff.

Happy 2006!

I know the holidays are really over now, because my daughter Sarah is back in school this morning.

Her current fascination is the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling, and the movies based on them.

The books are set in the present, but portray life in an insular "wizarding" subculture with little interest in new technology. The title character attends a boarding school for witches and wizards. Writing is by quill on parchment; chemistry is done in iron cauldrons instead of test tubes; messages are delivered by carrier owls rather than by the Postal Service; computers are not even mentioned. They have their own bank (run by goblins), their own sports champions (a game like soccer played on flying broomsticks), even their own brands of candy.

The wizards of the story are careful not to attract the attention of "Muggles" (non-wizards). But conflict in the magical world has a way of spilling over.

Almost the same could be said of almost any group or subculture in society, whether ethnic, religious, professional, fraternal, social, cultural, or even family. Each has its own jargon, its own peculiar rules and norms. Humans are social creatures, and in-groups satisfy innate needs for belonging. But more than that, the people who work together on a specific kind of specialized task tend to become an in-group as well.

And just as our physical infrastructure is invisible to most people until it breaks down, we don't even notice most of the in-groups around us until conflict breaks out. Even then, or perhaps especially then, the group is likely to be misunderstood.

One such subculture we all know well is the legal profession.

Like the fictional wizards, lawyers use archaic language and old-fashioned manners, make a sharp distinction between insiders and outsiders, spend hours in libraries in search of obscure knowledge, and share a value system founded on ritualized combat.

Most lawyers read the same specialized magazines and newspapers, and like to socialize and talk with other lawyers, all of which help propagate characteristics that distinguish lawyers as a group from other people.

These same differences foster widespread resentment toward lawyers, who are seen not only as cliquish but mysteriously powerful. In past centuries, people suspected of engaging in witchcraft (thought to be mysteriously powerful) were put to death; our culture is still full of murderous fantasies about lawyers. Shakespeare's famous line — "The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers" — is echoed by innumerable lawyer jokes which deny the humanity of lawyers — like, "What's 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start."

Lawyers take an oath to abide by a fairly stringent standard of ethics. In practice, however, the public is dubious, because lawyers are nimble at taking advantage of exceptions and loopholes and interpretations. A lot of lawyer jokes take the dishonesty of lawyers for granted, such as this riddle: "How can you tell a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving."

Perhaps the most telling lawyer joke is the one about the wealthy man on his deathbed who wants to be buried with his money. He puts all his cash in three envelopes; before dying, he gives them to three trusted professionals, to drop into his casket during his funeral. Afterwards, the doctor and priest both admit that they found more important uses for the money (medical research, helping the poor of the parish), and dropped empty envelopes into the casket. The lawyer scolds them for breaking their promise and disregarding the man's last wish. So what did the lawyer do? "I wrote him a check," he says.

Most lawyers don't make as much money as most non-lawyers assume. The glamorous image of lawyers in the popular culture is belied by the surplus of people contending for jobs in the profession. Even lawyers who have plenty of work can find themselves very pinched: in every economic downturn, the first thing people do is to stop paying their lawyers. I think Border's has a whole rack of books about alternative careers for lawyers.

Many of the customers we see every day are lawyers, and not just in Circuit Court. Indeed, two of our leadership team (Chief Deputy Karen Edman and myself) are lawyers. We are all accustomed to their quirks, and know many of them as individuals. We uphold many of the values important to lawyers: the rule of law, due process, freedom of speech, preserving records, fair trials for persons accused of crimes, and so on.

Just a few weeks ago, I participated as Clerk in the swearing-in of a large group of new attorneys. I was impressed with their seriousness and dedication, and with the varied credentials and experience each bring. But all of them face the daunting task of getting established and making a living in the profession, starting out with hard work and very long hours.

I know that deputy clerks who work in this office often know a whole lot more about courts and civil procedure than some brusque young lawyer across the counter. Arrogance and ignorance can be a really irritating combination!

But it's our job to refrain from fighting fire with fire. A lawyer is not some species of cockroach, nor a pampered member of the elite. Think of the lawyer, instead, as being a harried working person trying to make a living. Like all customers, the key is to treat them with courtesy and respect. And, who knows, maybe next time, they'll reciprocate.

Let's have a great week!

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Comments:

Temple Stark, 1/19/2006: Ah this is where you are !!!.

Hope you're looking back at PolState as we are officially (without the stuffiness that "official" implies*) hopping. I'll have to read around later.

This jump to Quick topic is rather interesting, too.

-Temple
PolState dude

* Just pulling your elected official leg.

Sunday, January 1, 2006, 11:50 pm

More on the 9/11 narrative. As mentioned in the postscript to my earlier posting about 9/11 (December 30), Adam de Angeli has posted a rebuttal.

My original posting was not a smackdown of any notion that there is more to the 9/11 story than was originally reported in the media. Rather, I'm saying that the advocates of alternate versions will have to come up with a story that makes sense if they want to be taken seriously.

I'm not looking to debate over this, but I do want to respond to some of his points. Where I don't respond, that means I have nothing further to add, not that I concede.

Adam writes:

A "contrarian" is one who disagrees with people for the sake of disagreement. People are not questioning the official explanation because they enjoy doing so...

No, I don't accept that characterization. I'm a bit of a contrarian myself. What contrarians really enjoy is being proven right.

[Kestenbaum] is assuming that I am being paranoid.

No clinical diagnosis of anyone was intended or implied. Rather, I'm saying that the critique of the mainstream narrative of 9/11 fits into the paranoid style in American politics, in seeing major historical events driven by secret acts by a single, huge, powerful, evil or amoral conspiracy.

People ... are questioning the official explanation because it is full of internal contradictions, factual errors, physical impossibilities, and countless other reasonsable doubts ... the arguments against the official explanation are not "emotional pulls," they are facts.

Life is untidy. History is a mess of contradictions, loose ends, and unexplained circumstances. A paranoid view has a simple answer which explains it all, and as such, is immensely appealing on an emotional level. That emotional appeal often overrides logic, so the logic claimed to support a paranoid view should always be scrutinized carefully.

Just because Serendipity has a more complex and sometimes speculative theory than other sites does not mean everyone in the 9/11 Truth Movement believes it.... it's assumed that Serendipity speaks for all 9-11 research.

I quoted two different critics with differing points of view — specifically the two who had been brought to my attention recently. Any assumption that either one "speaks for all 9-11 research" is Adam's, not mine.

The amount of hard evidence of government perpetration of the events makes it irrelevant as to whether or not the hijackings were faked.

Adam disclaims Serendipity's theory that military drones, rather than hijacked planes, hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And certainly there are difficulties with that idea: the drones would be incriminating if discovered in the rubble, as would be personal effects or dental work of passengers from the other flights discovered among the wreckage of Flight 93.

Moreover, I know someone in the building trade who, that morning, was working on a swing stage, 60 floors up, on the exterior of the former Pan Am Building (above Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan). Here's an excerpt of what he wrote a day or two later:

Tiny (who weighs 275) breaks conversation and sez "Getta load of this asshole"

With that all eyes focus on this incoming 757 wagging its wings coming over the Pan Am just 200 feet from our deck.

As the huge jet approached it veered slightly to the right; the sparkle of the sun glistened its wings and the rays warmed its fuselage

our men who hang precariously off the sides of buildings are outraged at the total disregard for safety; stand and yell obscenity at the pilot shaking their trowels as the jumbo careens over Broadway just broadside of us.

The sun is very bright just now we can see the white shirt of the pilot(?) and in the direct sun we can see the heads of passengers at their assigned windows. I distinctly see a blond woman at her seat.

My friend is not part of any conspiracy, so that puts the drone theory to rest as far as I'm concerned.

But if it is conceded that the planes were hijacked by terrorists and crashed, then different problems arise.

Two fully loaded jumbo jets colliding with the World Trade Center surely did grievous damage even without any collapse. The towers would still have been gutted by fire, unsafe to enter or re-use, and seen as a total loss. The political effects would have been the same.

So, why would a hypothetical conspiracy have needed to run huge risks to plant explosives in the tower, and coordinate timing with the terrorists, in order to bring about a collapse that seemed to be caused by the plane crashes?

Adam answers as follows:

Because the frame-up couldn't have worked any other way.

But if Islamic terrorists really did hijack the planes — even if they were put up to it by the CIA — then it wasn't a "frame-up".

Adam continues:

There is no easy way to blow up the World Trade Centers. If they had demolished the buildings without crashing the planes, nobody would be gullible enough to think the terrorists had the ability to coordinate such a complex task on such high-security buildings. Even since 9/11 it's become abundantly clear that the terrorists do not have large bombs sufficient to demolish the Twin Towers. All of the Al Qaeda attacks have used much smaller bombs.

Using the plane crashes, they've gotten the public to believe and accept the myth that plane crashes could have knocked down those skyscrapers. It's a much easier myth to swallow than Al Qaeda having access to the necessary demolition points for weeks on end.

The traumatic event was the deliberate crashing of planes; collapse of the damaged structure was ancillary. Most of the tens of thousands of people who worked in the WTC complex had evacuated before that happened.

Referring specifically to Serendipity's theory about faked hijackings, I wrote: "Yow. If true, that would be the crime of the century." Adam responds:

The illegal invasion of Iraq was the crime of the century. But, the 9/11 attacks were an essential component of the pretext for it (and so much else). More importantly though, 9/11 was a crime of historical proportions whether or not the Serendipity theory about it is correct or not.

No, military invasions, even if horrible and wrong, are not "crimes". Even at Nuremburg, Nazi leaders were not charged with the invasions of Poland or Czechoslovakia or France as such. In general, national leaders who send their troops into another country to kill and be killed, even if in defiance of national or international laws or treaties, do so openly and with the support of their constituents.

By contrast, if George W. Bush were ever to be shown convincingly to have had explicit foreknowledge of 9/11, let alone to have brought it about, he would instantly become the most reviled man in all of American history. "Criminal" would be one of the milder words used for him. Everyone in his campaign, Administration, and party would be disgraced, whether they were complicit or not.

That kind of downside risk, for a temporary political gain, would be pretty daunting to even the most amoral White House. And the risk is multiplied as the number of people involved rises.

It's a necessary article of faith for theories of vast conspiracies that large organizations (such as governments) are capable of keeping big secrets. Sometimes they can for a short time, especially in a crisis. But people change over time. If dozens or hundreds or thousands of people know some terrible secret, pretty soon word of it is going to leak out.

And because this is such a predictable result of a conspiracy to secretly do some monstrous evil deed, it's pretty unlikely that any rational president would get involved in one.

Adam takes me to task for not personally examining evidence, but that's not my department. There are lots of experts who examine blast shards and metal fragments under microscopes and understand what they mean, thousands of others who match burnt pieces of teeth with dental records, still more thousands who know all the ins and outs of aircraft and transponders and radio frequencies and flight trajectories and many, many other things.

No one has enough money to buy silence from all of those experts, or enough force to intimidate every one without anyone noticing.

A thousand different "loose ends" or claimed contradictions don't add up to very much, if few of them are taken seriously by experts. On the other hand, a dozen clues raised by amateurs could be the key to a hidden truth — if they point to a consistent, plausible theory of what happened and why.

A revisionist theory of events with no coherent story line and little expert support isn't going to convince many people.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Comments

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