Welcome. For quite a number of years I've been trying to work out why my Anglefire page looks so totally wasted and trashed and I've finally worked it out.

After Lycos took over Angelfire.com they gradually phased out support for "free" hosted sites and agressively increased its use of advertising on fre hosted sites to the point that people resorted more and more to using browsers and ad-blocker plugins. 

This practice bacame so intrusive globally that browsers now come fully fitted ith admirably functioning, ad-blockers, pop up, pop under, po over filters and the option to switch on or off various scripts, the most common being javascript.

In trying to trouble shoot problems with my site,  I switched off my ad-blocker and to my surprise the page was completely covered with advertising: 

:- advertising in the header,

:- advertising in the footer - actually covering the content on my single screen page, and

:- hovering advertising the occupeied the middle of the page 

There is almost nowhere on the page that you can click without hitting click  advertising. The page is completely held hostage to this advertising and the only way of removing it is to give in to Lycos' advertisment driven extortion and pay for hosting OR use an ad-blocker and risk not having my site look completely the way I want it to.

This is really quite tragic. My site has been continuously on the web since January 11, 1995 - 25 years with Angelfire, and I still use it. It is not a ghost site, long forgoten and uncared for, occupying wasted bits of storage on some dust crudded server somewhere. 

I will continue to use my ad-blocker and continue to maintain my angelfire connection until they terminate free hosting altogether, but I'll be damned if I'll give in to this blatant abuse and extortion by Lycos, in particular of long term, active, and and otherwise loyal users.

Mood:  irritated

A recent article in the New York Times, "Restaurants Turn Camera Shy," highlighted a growing community concern and a number of actions being taken to address the issue of ostensibly, amateur food photography in restaurants. This was always going to happen, regardless of the desires of chefs, restaurant owners or the opinions of tutting patrons. Its a natural progression of the capabilities of mobile phones and the freedom of expression they allow through incorporated technologies.

In the 80's and through to the 90's there was great debate about mobile phone usage in restaurants. As phones got cheaper, smaller and more available, people started to protest the use of mobile phones in public spaces, like restaurants, cinemas, theaters, public transport, bars, etc. So much so that various etiquettes were proposed and promoted.�€ï¿½ï¿½€ï¿½

Today, the presence of a mobile phone on a table is no longer a public hanging offense, although people are expected to, in some degree, control the volume of their own voice when needing to use their phone, or entertain the concept of, '...can't you just, call them back.'

With the growing public interest in celebrity chefs, their food, food culture and a general growing public consciousness of gastronomy, AND high quality integrated camera systems built into internet enabled mobile phones, Food Photography, amateur or otherwise was destined to become a social bugbear. However, banning photos in the restaurant is akin to the ostrich burying its head in the sand when the tiger comes. It does not resolve the issue, or make or go away.

This is an issue of Social interaction. At one level is the desire to Share with friends what one is doing. On another level is the social impact of our actions on those in the immediate environs around us, and the degree to which we have a social responsibility to be mindful and respectful of such strangers. Its this issue of the impact of our actions on others that is the crux of the issue. Unfortunately, there are many in our society that would crush any public display of interest and enjoyment simply because they do not share that interest or joy for such expression of freedom. And a core issue at hand here IS one of freedom of expression.

When a food photo, as most would take them, is enacted it is a short period of time. However, loud noisy conversations go on, sometimes for what seems, ad nauseum. Many people have still not learned to speak quietly in a restaurant. We have lost our way when it comes to social ettiquette. In many asian countries, the idea of a quiet dim lit dinner is anathema to them, such ideas would be counter to their own forms of ettiquette. Even though etiquette is a long dead concept, we still struggle with the need for it.

As mobile technology increasingly enables us to interconnect with each other, through out much of our daily activities, the detractors will increasingly protest the loss of individualized isolation. Mark my words, it will not be too long before such isolationist people start taking videos of the rest of us making food photos, and post those videos to the web with an, "OMG! He's photographing his food, how gauche! Share This, if you think he shouldn't."

Mood:  irritated

I going to explore a troubling fault, as I see it, associated with discussing future plans. Troubling because it causes confusion and and continuous disagreement. Unbelievably it one of the unresolved debarkles of English Language Usage that has not been difinitively addressed. 

For the most part as we live from moment to moment, our experience of time is always the present moment. Experientially we are unable to move within time beyond the Present. Although we may be able to recall and 'relive' elements of the Past, it is not the same as the experiential moment, the recollection is not the 'now' in full, of that moment.

We are also able to project into the Future, and for some things make reasonably accurate predictions of what may come to pass, but again no matter how close those predictions may be they are not the same as the acutal future 'Now' that occurs. Be that as it may, this has not stopped us from developing a dialogue and mechanism for talking about the future or the past. However, our dialogue for discussing future plans is fundamentally flawed.

It is flawed because there is no direct agreement on what the terms, "This Wednesday" and "Next Wednesday" actually refers to. The flaw is essentially an issue of Reletivity - Einstein at work  

As outlined above we experience the present, (This) remember the past (Last) and predict the future (Next). In essence then time for us is linear. We track this linear nature of time with a Calendar. We divide time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, month, and years. So Time as we perceive it is like a queue and our experiential 'Now' is positioned somewhere in that queue.

The interesting part is that for everyone within our awareness of 'Now' is also in the Time queue at exactly the same time moment. It follows then that we all share the same agreement about Time, how it is measured, tracked, and how we express our concept of it. Otherwise we cannot have the same expeience or awareness of each other. We would simply not meaningfully exist to each other. (Yes, there is an entirely different discussion and argument around this conclusion, but lets just take it as given for the purose of the current discussion.)

So our Primary reference point for any discussion of future events is based on our expiriential now and where that is in the time queue.

In any queue, the "Next" item is the directly after the current item. e.g. I have a line of seven jelly babies: red, yellow, pink, green, orange, purple, and blue. I am 'Now' eating the red jelly baby; the 'Next Jellybaby' is the yellow one. I am eating 'this Jellybaby' (the red one) and I am going to eat 'this jellybaby' next (the purple one).

Here we introduce the concept of item classification and group names. This concept is important and integral to our problems relating to discussion regarding Next and This. We are also introducing the concept of a pointer to identify specific objects where the pointer can jump the queue. This is fine where we can randomly sampl physical object or even abstract concepts however, we experience time in a linear fashion asnd as such cannot randomly sample the time queue - we are not Galifreyan Timelords  

If I repeat the sequence of jellybabies then I have a new problem, how to refer to the same colour jelly baby in the second sequence? I have to name each repeat sequence, e.g. group 1, group 2, etc.

Timewise, for the point of this discussion, we have days, weeks, months, and years.

Today, Tomorrow,and Yesterday. There is no next Today, next tomorrow, or Next Yesterday. As funny as this sounds, there is also no this Today, this tomorrow, or this Yesterday, either; or, Last Today, Last Tomorrow, or last Yesterday. The reason for this is that Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday are shifting concepts rather than Proper names like the days of the week. (Hang on, I know, week is also one of these, we'll get to it.)

Days of the Week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. (We could also start on Monday too... its not important.) A Week refers to a group of seven days. Like the jellybabies above if we repeat the group sequentially after the first group (Week 1) we have another week (Week 2), if we do this again we have three weeks (Week 3).

Lets place our experiential 'Now' at the middle day of the middle week, from the list above, the middle day would be Wednesday.

So, Last, This, Next: What? Now we have to select a descriptor or group name. Let's take the group Name Week. We are experientially at the middle day of the middle week of our, short, three week, Time Queue as outlined above.

From this relative position, "Last Week" refers to Week 1, or the last 'group of 7 days' (week) in the queue, relative to our present position in the time queue.

Similarly, "Next Week" refers to Week 3 or the next 'group of 7 days' (week) in the queue, relative to our present position in the time queue. 

Finally, "This Week" refers to the current group for seven days (week) relative to our present position in the time queue. That is the three days preceeding our position, because our 'Now' has been placed at the middle day of the week for this discussion; and, the following three days which together complete this present group of seven days.

What's important to realise about this wek, is that it does not matter which day of the seven is our present (Today) day, because we are refering to the specific group of seven days that make up this current Week. 

This is all really unproblematic, but needs to be defined BECAUSE when we start talking about days in different weeks IS when we start having communicaitons issues and is the point over which many people don't agree and convention has not difinitively established. 

So, our present relative position in the time queue item, DAY - of which there are seven discrete and distinctly named days. Our present 'Now' (Today) is Wednesday. 

Thus, "Last Tuesday" the last occurence of a Tuesday in the time queue which was "Yesterday." Similarly, "Next Thursday" is the very next occurence of a thursday in the timequeue which is "Tomorrow." Finally, it follows then (pedantically? controvertially?) that "This Wednsday" (Today) refers to the current occurrence of a Wednesday in the time queue BUT by convention 'This' is relative only to the time queue item WEEK. i.e. This Wednesday is the very next (future) occurence of a Wednesday within the current, 'This' week. Thus 'This Wednesday' can refer to either a future or past Wednesday but only within the present week. Herein lies all the controversy over This and Next... (and Last)

The controversy exists because while Next, Last and This are similar terms they are not used in the same way. We can say, this second, this minute, this day, this week, this month, this year, but, this day has become archaic in use, i.e. it is redundant and has been replaced by Today. Next and Last are queue markersand specifically refer to the next or last occurence of a specific day, week, month, or year IN RELATION TO the CURRENT point of 'NOW' in the time queue.

So, now, today, is Wednesday. This Wednesday is meaningless as it is today. Next Wednesday, is the next occurrence of a Wednesday in the time queue, which is the Wednesday of Next Week.

It follows that Next Friday is the is the next occurrence of a Friday in the time queue, which is the Friday of This Week. Thus This Friday and Next Friday are the same day.

Now, Last Wednesday was the last, most recently passed, occurrence of a Wednesday in the time queue, which is the Wednesday of last week. It follows that Last Monday is the last occurrence of a Monday in the time queue which iwas the Monday of this week. Thus Last Monday and This Monday are also the same day. By convention though we tend to say, This Monday passed.

Where is the controversy in all of this? It occurs when we refer to a future day. Say it is Wednesday and you want to set up a meeting for Tuesday of next week. This Tuesday has already passed so we might say, "Lets meet next Tuesday."

Some people consider Next Tuesday to always be the Tuesday after This Tuesday, and define This Tuesday as refering (erroneously) to the next occurence of a Tuesday in the time queue, and Next Tuesday to be the one that follows that. The problem with this is that the Tuesday of this week needs to then be refered to as, "This week, Tuesday" or "This week, Tuesday passed" for clarrity, which 9 times out of 10 doesn't happen. Its cumbersom communication.

 Others consider Next Tuesday always to be the Tuesday of Next Week, and Last Tuesday as the Tuesday of Last Week. This creates similar problems with refering to the Tuesday of this current week.

Why is it so? Why is this unresolved? Why can we not agree on logical, pedantic, specific, or  clear rules for the usage of these terms in this context? I think it comes back to the redundancy issue. That of understanding and accepting that Today, Wednesday, is also This Wednesday, that last Tuesday was Yesterday and Tomorrow is Next Thursday. Accepting that days are sequential and cyclic and that our reference point shift dynamically relative to DAY or WEEK. Dynamic Systems are harder to understand and people, bless them can't be bothered to think that hard. 

JM2CW. 

Mood:  chatty

I don’t know how many Australian’s there are, here in a vibrant, ever changing city like Hanoi, nor do I know how pat & expat Australians might feel about Anzac Day, but for me it always reminds me about my family back home.

Now, Australian’s as far as I can tell, don’t have all that many rituals, and the few there are tend mostly to revolve around horses or sport. (Melbourne Cup, Grand Final Day, The Ashes, etc.) One of the few that’s just a little bit different is the Anzac Tradition.

Nowadays, there are no original ANZAC’s still alive, and most of the families that lost someone at the time, have moved two or more generations on. On top of this most Australian’s both at home and abroad have never served in the Armed Forces, so how does such a tradition remain relevant to us in this day and age.

For me, although I did some time with the Reserves, and even joined the RSL at one stage, Anzac Day is not a day for remembering the sacrifices of soldiers long past, but a day for considering the qualities and spirit they embodied and that we still value.

Also, we have all had someone close to us, or meaningful to us pass away. So Anzac Day, so it seems to me, is a good day to remember them.

One person for me is my grandfather. He was not born in Australia, but he made it his, his wife’s and daughters, and my home. His whole life was about personal, self-sacrifice in the name of freedom, so that his family and loved ones could live a better life. This is the embodiment of a key Anzac quality.

When we remember “those brave Anzac soldiers” it is often said that they gave their lives to preserve our way of life, so that we might live free.

Another person is my first step-father. He taught me that you don’t have to be great all the time, just steadfast at what you do. That, when something is truly important, then you have to make a choice rather than sit on the fence, stand up to be counted AND then hold steadfast to what you claim to believe, in-spite of the opposition.

Being steadfast to their duty and their sense of honor is at the very heart of what is often termed the “Anzac Legend”. It is a quality we still value, even today.

Each of us has some one who we can remember: a family member, a teacher, a colleague, a friend. Can I ask you to take a minute, in silence, next Anzac Day, to think of them?

Originally titled, "Discussion Paper - Expressing Opinions in Public (long post)"

Executive Summary

What are the rules for expressing public opinion? The following document establishes that public debate is the discussion of opinions as expressed by individuals in public forums. That these opinions are predominantly arguments designed to sway people to accept a certain statement and as such the rules governing the expression on opinions follows those of formulating an argument. It also establishes some guidelines for the writing of responses to expressed opinions when such responses involve the putting of an opposing or dissenting view.

Expressing Opinions in Public.

According to the Tetroidian World View, our identities as individuals are formed and shaped by interacting with other people. Through their eyes, facial and body gestures, towards and in response to us, we come to know ourselves.

It can be said that through our public interactions our personal reputations are formed and confirmed. There are many ways to interact with others socially and publicly. One primary way is via public discourse. Through this, our public or social identities are forged. The following document examines the rules of public discussion and puts forward some recommendations on how to provide criticism in a public forum.

In ‘The Virtual Republic’ 1997, Mackenzie Walk remarks that a republic is
created when people actively engage in public discussion. He further comments that unlike the republics of old, where the village square or city market place was the gathering place for all and sundry which allowed for public discourse to occur, in modern times public discourse takes place via the media and to some extent via the internet.

It is not surprising then that societies have sought to establish and develop
rules for public debate and discourse even as the nature of public debate has
become less embodied. These can be summarised broadly as follows:

A: oratory
B: forum
C: meetings procedure
D: debate
E: letter writing
F: bulletin boards
G: online discussion groups.

This list is neither meant to be descriptive nor complete. Rather, it is a
finger painted trail towards our current means of public discourse.

Each of the above forms of public debate has their rules and recent times many have come to say that the ‘Art of letter writing’ is being lost especially as we engage more and more in online discussion. To be more specific, the skill in writing a well informed argument and responding to it, in kind is being lost. A search of the World Wide Web generates many responses on this topic, but few online sources discuss or develop strategies for a response to this concern.

Looking deeper into the issue what appears to be the issue, is not so much the loss of letter writing itself, this has largely been supplanted by email and
electronic text exchanges, but the lack of skill in developing a well informed
argument i.e. thinking clearly, and presenting that in a public forum. That is,
the skills involved in debating and arguing are progressively being lost and it
is this that is the principle cause of concern to many.

These rules of public debate are an essential part of our social etiquette
insofar as they provide a framework for engaging in discussion. Both for the
presentation of a point of view, opinion or argument and for the presentation of counter opinions, arguments and rebuttal.

Galvin, Prescott and Huseman, in ‘Business Communication strategies and skills’ 1992, state that clear thinking is essential in the course of our daily lives and define it as the ability to see the difference between logical and illogical arguments.

They also give a useful working definition for an argument stating, ‘…it is a
piece of … writing which not only makes statements we are expected to believe but uses these statements as reasons for other statements (which we are also expected to believe).’

From this we can see that expressing an opinion in public via some means of
discourse transmission is in effect the presentation of an argument. As such
there are specific rules that allow us to best present that opinion.

With regard to public discourse and the expression of opinions there are two
principle types of argument that we come across that being Inductive and
Deductive argument.

Typical forms of Inductive argument, or reasoning, involve arguing from a
particular point to a more general conclusion. It is probably the most common for of Examples of this are:

generalisation, e.g. in my experience this happened… thus it’s the same
everywhere else;

cause and effect, e.g. (where the cause is known) I fell over and broke my leg therefore I need medical treatment and time off work; (where the effect is known) I felt vomitus and had a lot of pain in my stomach half an hour after eating at street cart therefore street cart food is not safe to eat;

analogy: e.g. (a personal experience statement) ‘When I was in Changsha we had a very successful English Salon which met regularly in a bar and conducted many outside activities. It had a Chinese organisational group and a foreign host.’  (a general situation perceived as a problem) ‘In looking at how English salons should be run so that they are successful this model should be followed.’

Deductive arguments, or reasoning, involve arguing from a general case to a
specific conclusion. It involves a three step process of classifying things into
groups.

For example,
(universal statement) Foreign teachers of English are native speakers
(individual case) Debbie is a foreigner and speaks English
(Conclusion) She must be an English Teacher

This kind of argument is very popular particularly when it comes to pigeonholing individuals or giving advice, e.g. ‘Every time I go to the market place the shop keepers try to rip me off, Why? Many foreigners have a lot of money. You are a foreigner; therefore you can afford to pay more than the local people.’

People love to classify others according some type or criteria. As a result this
type of reasoning is easily abused. Because of this a number of guidelines have developed over time to assist with the development of an argument. While there are no hard and fast rules, the following could be considered as the rules for public debate in a general sense.

1. When making a generalisation, don’t argue from a sample that is too small. This could result in stupid or dangerous statements, e.g. Chinese women are demure and respectful than their western counterparts therefore they make much better wives; An allergy to certain types of alcohol is no excuse to refuse to ganbei white spirits with the bride and groom at a wedding.
2. Make sure that the sample from which you draw your generalisation is
reasonably representative. Popular opinion might hold that good foreign
teachers of English have excellent oral fluency in their native tongue, but does it necessarily follow that all foreign speakers are good teachers?
3. Be careful about the use of words like, all, no, some, few, and most. It only takes one exception to pull apart arguments based on these.
4. When dealing with causal arguments three questions need to be addressed:
a. What is the possibility or probability that the cause was solely responsible
for the effect?
b. What is the likelihood of multiple causes operating at the same time in a
synergistic manner?
c. Is it possible, that a specific condition existed at the time, which may have
produced this effect where in its absence; a different outcome would normally result?
5. When looking at causal arguments we need to also consider whether the cause is ‘sufficient’ for bringing about an effect or ‘necessary’ in order to produce the effect.
6. When making an analogy ask if the two situations are sufficiently similar to draw an valid conclusion based on the analogy.
7. A deduction is only as good as the premise it is based on and the validity of
the link arguments.

There are many common problems with putting forward an opinion in a public forum. Most have their source in common fallacies that plague arguments. Some of these are:

Trying to discredit the person rather than the augment i.e. playing the man not the ball, to use a sporting analogy ;-)

Misusing or misrepresenting authority regarding the topic, i.e. ‘An elderly
minister I know has been living and working in China for 20 years. He told me how it really is here, so I know what I’m talking about.’

Appealing to commonsense i.e. the ‘everybody knows this’ argument.

A dishonest trick is to forestall criticism by words or phrases designed to make it difficult to offer fair criticism, e.g. ‘Foreign teachers apartments should be located on the ground floor and provided with western style toilets – Elderly white haired gent.’

Emotive language is one of the key triggers for explosive response to publicly
aired opinions. Everyone has their own inbuilt prejudices which can be easily
triggered by emotion laden words which are otherwise irrelevant to the argument, e.g. ‘It is our moral obligation to not only teach English but to raise local standards. We would be failing in our duty of care if we did not ensure our belief systems, values and ethics were fully appreciated by the people of this region.’

Absolute terms like, always, never, hopeless, countless, infinite, etc. are
often used to try and sway an argument in an illegitimate manner.

False classification results frequently in ‘black and white’ situations. This
creates problems by failing to allow for the full gamut of possibilities .e.g.
‘If you are not white and from Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, or
Britain, you just can’t get work as a foreign teacher of English.’

Misuse of statistics, in the case of public opinion, involve the quoting of
statistics ‘off the top of one’s head’ in order to give greater credibility to
the opinion, e.g. ‘1 in 7 foreign teachers in this country date their students
or other persons of student age. 33% of these teachers are female.’

In this ESL community, the medium for the forums for public discussion, are the email lists to which we subscribe. This medium relies on the written word. Very few caveats on what can be opined exist which creates a relatively free discussion space. However, there are some accepted norms of behaviours that also shape how opinions may be presented.

First and foremost is the issue of friendliness. This is the underlying
principle and relate directly to the principle fallacy of presenting arguments,
that of attacking the person. The second is the restriction on directly
attacking the reputation of individuals and institutions by naming them and any associated complaints in public.

Of the accepted norms these can be summarized by the statement, ‘Be firm, friendly, fair and frank.’ This is where the art of letter writing is indeed an art. Email is electronic mail – that is, writing an email is in fact the writing of an electronic letter.

The trouble is that email communication is very ephemeral, and very fast. It is so easy to tap out a response and send it off that the usual process of
re-reading what was written before posting is often circumvented. This results in ill-conceived responses that may impinge on the accepted norms or the established rules for interacting in such a forum.

What follows are some guidelines for engaging in public debate and for writing letters of criticism.
1. After you’ve read an opinion, climb down off the soapbox, take a deep breath, grab a cup of your favourite beverage and examine exactly what is narking you off.
2. Ask the question, ‘Does the opinion presented contain particular fallacies in
order to support it?’ ‘How do those fallacies contribute to your current state?’
3. In writing your response, quote the offending material first – be specific,
then present your criticism, again be specific. If someone presents an argument peppered with fallacies it defeats the purpose to respond in kind.
4. Wit is always preferable to sarcasm. Sarcasm is in many ways is a mechanism to put down or attack an individual as such it may not be perceived by people of differing cultural backgrounds as being particularly friendly. Wit however, is the clever use of words often in a humorous manner and can often be found in the riposte or retort involved in verbal duelling.
5. Brevity and choice of words are hallmarks of Plain English and clear
thinking. Be direct (firm), be honest (friendly), be specific (fair), be brief
(frank).

Barnett and Morell wrote in a section dealing with hints on composition,
‘English Grammar & Analysis with exercises’ 1893, ‘Words are materials: be
careful in the choice of them. A house, however well planned, cannot give
satisfaction if the bricks and mortar and timber are bad. The same remark
applies to composition.’

They go onto suggest never using a word unless you are sure of its usage and meaning; to use shorter words where possible; and if a word has more than one meaning make sure your usage leave no doubt as to the meaning you intend.

The same applies for statements, make sure the your intended meaning is clear, ambiguous statements can lead to misunderstanding or misconstrued criticism. This is probably the principle cause of flame wars and heated debate laden with personally directed invective.

6. If you are wrong, or have misunderstood the argument, apologize. There is no shame in admitting an error. Having said that, there is also no margin in making a pantomime of one’s humbled self.
7. Intellectual arrogance has no place in public debate, nor do strongly held
religious or philosophical beliefs. Most people are not party to all the information you may think you know.

Brandishing such knowledge like a truncheon serves no purpose but to stifle
debate and stimulate animosity. However, careful and judicious use of such to support and expand one’s argument is a legitimate use.

Opinions are like ear holes, most people have a couple. As such the presenting of opinions in public forums is a common practice in society. It is essential for any society or social group from time to time analyze and evaluate its modes and conventions particularly with respect to public debate.

In a culturally diverse group the means by which we formulate, present and
debate opinions will from time to time change. Thus, our reputation within a
particular social group is built around the opinions we hold and how well we
communicate them.


References:

Wark, McKenzie. ‘The Virtual Republic, Australia’s culture wars of the 1990’s.’
Allen and Unwin. 1997

Galvin, M. Prescott, D. Husemane, R. ‘Business Communications, strategies and
skills.’ 4th Ed. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.1992

Barnett, P.A. Morell, J.D. ‘The New Morell being a Grammar of the English
Language together with an exposition of The analysis of sentences.’ Aberdeen University Press. Allman & Son. 1893

__________________________

Tsc Tempest

__________________________
People's Republic of China
Hohhot, Inner Mongolia

First published Sun Mar 27, 2005 on TEFLChinaLife