The problem with a lack of accuracy in the news.

Shotty news coverage reduces trust in the news. Don't worry this is politics-free.

I am going to discuss one news story on CNN. You can find fiction on every news site but this one is just a perfect example of really bad journalism.

We will start off with the headline.

Grumman X-29: The impossible fighter jet with inverted wings.

So what is wrong with the headline? 

Well for starters the wings are not inverted they are swept forward. They are not mounted upside down or backward. The leading edge of the airfoil is pointing forward as it should. It is in no way inverted. It is also not a fighter. It had no weapons. It had no gun. It was a research aircraft. A plane can not be a fighter if it can not fight.

Well, those are just words does it really matter? 

Words do matter and a journalist's first task is to get the facts straight. the real issue with this is just the laziness of this. My guess is it was researched with Wikipedia and enhanced with a thesaurus. I am sure the author just looked up backward and got inverted and thought it was an impressive word. 

It is a matter of trust.

I can not trust a news site one a subject I am knowledgeable about how can I trust them when I am not knowledgeable enough to cross-check it myself or worse will I trust them to tell me something I need to hear but goes counter to my world view? When this happens a news site has lost its power to inform and educate.

If you want to see it for yourself you can here CNN

The problem with a lot of YouTube channels I used to like.

My wife says I am not like other people.

This is a terrible picture of me wearing my Snoop Dog "as in Snoopy" hoodie. It is also a NASA Apollo hoodie. I love tools, I like homesteading and rural life, I like high technology, I like retro technology, I like history, and I like teaching my Sunday School class. But three things I really do not like are politics, left-wing self-loathing,  and right-wing conspiracy nuts!

I have friends that fit into both categories. For an example of left-wing self-loathing just listen to any music by Midnight oil. A bunch of white guys from Australia that sing about how badly the indigenous population was treated. This is true but the made a bunch of money singing about it and maybe the gave some money to help but I bet they made a pretty good living at it as well. I am sure that people feel cleansed by being told how terrible they are but it really helps nothing,

Then you have the right-wing conspiracy theory nuts that think they have the inside dope on how the world really works. You also have the left-wing conspiracy theory folks but I have not been bothered by them of late. This is the problem there is a YouTuber that does some really good projects and reviews. I really like what he does except that he is a prepper. He also has a video on preparing for WW III. He is also a big concealed carry guy and talks about taking his gun with him to dinner with his wife.  I have friends that have guns and that is fine but I do not own a gun and never really needed one.

Planning for World War III is just in my opinion a little crazy. Same thing for trying to defend the US from invasion with your own gun or rebelling against the United States government. 

So here is the problem. Because I watched his video YouTube is suggesting other extremist gun nut and prepper videos to me.

But wait your blog is all over the place as far as subjects.
Yes, that is correct but this blog is more just for me to try and improve my writing skills. I am not trying to make money off of it and my views are in the double digits at best not in the tens of thousands. It is just my interests and I keep politics out of it. In fact, this is going to be the only post I make on this subject but I really wanted to get it off of my chest. Plus I think it is possible to like making and growing things without preparing for the end of the world.

Random Thoughts: An Analysis of Macbeth as an Aristotelian Tragedy,

If you are wondering what the heck this is all about or think that I might be kidding let me explain. I am currently taking college courses and I had to write a paper on Shakespeare's Macbeth and analysis it as an Aristotelian Tragedy. I decided to go ahead and post it on my blog.

Spoiler Alert

If you have never seen or read Mcbeth you might not want to read past this point. Frankly, after reading past this point you may never want to read or watch Macbeth.

 

   The complication in the plot of Macbeth is when the witches tell him that he is to be king after he won a great battle. He had really everything that he could have wanted but his greed and ego for more lead him into self-destruction and a murderous rampage. 

   The climax comes when Malcolm kills Macbeth and retakes the throne. The denouement comes when Malcolm states he is going to return the land to peace and order. The denouncement is all very much in line with the old concept of the divine rule of kings being the only correct path. The usurper Macbeth brought mayhem to the kingdom that was only put right when the true king was put back on the throne.

   The principle protagonist and antagonist in Macbeth are one and the same. Macbeth. You could list just about every other character from the witches, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, to Malcolm as antagonists but the primary antagonist was Macbeth or Macbeth’s ego. The witches just provided an excuse for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s greed and ambition to take control of their lives, but it was only an excuse. Lady Macbeth encouraged her husband to abandon his morality and duty for power. All the rest of the characters had very good reasons to oppose Macbeth he was after all a murderous tyrant. In the end, the greatest opposition that the protagonist faced was his own ego, greed, and lack of moral compass. He was his own worst enemy.

   The themes in Hamlet are pride, greed, and infidelity. The pride and greed themes are clear but the infidelity has to do with Macbeth not keeping faithful to the true king. The virtue that Macbeth seems to inspire is the virtue of the status quo and of the ruling class. While it is easy to include the Christ-like attributes of humility as well as the blatantly obvious ones of don’t go around murdering people or trusting witches the actual virtue that it may have been created to inspire is not considered a virtue today. When looked at in historical context it is a cautionary tale about the futility of opposing the righteous rule of kings. Macbeth in his arrogance decides he should be ruler and kills the king. When that happens, things go badly for the people and Macbeth and his family. Only when the true heir to the throne regains the throne is all returned to normal. Today we do not believe in the divine right of kings to rule without question, so we see other lessons in virtue like humility and of course not committing murder that apply to current times.  

   Macbeth’s fatal flaw is hubris, his arrogance and compassion are what cause his downfall. Finding two examples of Macbeth’s hubris is difficult because the play is in many ways nothing but his hubris. The clear examples are when he believes the witches when they say he will be king and the second when they tell him that he will not be deposed until the forest moves and cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Both times he took it as proof of his own greatness and invulnerability. 

   It would be easy to select Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and out dammed spot as examples of using diction to increase the drama. The dialog of the sergeant in Act I scene II is a far less well-known example. In his description of the battle, he references the site of Christ’s crucifixion Golgotha as well as many other metaphorical terms to describe the horrors of the battlefield. The second is in Act V when Macbeth talks of the prophecy that no man born of woman can defeat him and dismisses the threat that Malcolm poses. I wonder what the people of the time thought. Did they wonder how the prophecy and events would resolve the paradox?

   The play starts off with spectacle the opening scene with the witches invokes the supernatural. The use of sound effects of thunder crashing and a storm raging are all images of wonder, terror, and power beyond the understanding of the people of the time. If you think of the time, they lived in such images would inspire awe in the audience.  The descriptive language of the great battles would then use imagination of the audience to provide a spectacle that was more internal. Shakespeare lacked the resources to stage a great battle so he uses descriptive language as a tool to create a spectacle in the audience’s mind. 

   My emotional reaction to this play? Disgust is probably the best description. I do not like it. I do not feel that it is a great example of a classic tragedy because it was completely avoidable, and I find the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to be completely unlikable and without any redeeming value. Unlike Oedipus Rex where the tragedy was driven by fate Macbeth is driven by greed and a complete lack of mercy and compassion. A passage that moved me. Nothing really did in a positive way. Even the Out Dammed Spot speech is about how the guilt of the murders committed affects Lady Macbeth.  I did not see any sorrow for the victims killed. It all filled me with disgust for the self-indulgent nature of the Macbeths

   Lady Macbeth’s Out Dammed Spot as an example of peripety is in that Lady Macbeth went from saying all that one has to do is wash away the blood to descending into insanity because of guilt over the murders.  I question the idea that she became insane at this point I am tempted to think that instead she regained some sanity and could longer just dismiss her terrible crimes.  Her death could be seen as her act of repentance or even the wages of sin. A dramatic change from her unbridled lust for power at the beginning of the play. 

Random Thoughts: History, when did World War II start.

Determining the day World War II started is not as simple as you might think. Let's start with the date that most Americans are taught in school. 

December 7, 1941

The attack on Pearl Harbor is the event that brought the US into World War II and is the day that most people in the US think of as the start of World War II. Most Europeans find this amusing, offensive, proof of Americans' ignorance of history and/or a perfect example of American arrogance.  There are actually a lot of good reasons to pick this date, but if you ask most Europeans they will give you the following date.

September 1, 1939, the Invasion of Poland

For Europe, this is the beginning of World War II. It was when Europeanblood was shed when people in Europe started to die and cities burned. The people of Europe spent just over two years fighting before the US officially joined the war. The problem with this date is that it shows as much of a Eurocentric bias, if not more so, than December 7th, 1941, shows a US-centric viewpoint. What about this date?

September 18, 1931, the Invasion of Manchuria

After the invasion of Manchuria came the invasion of China proper in 1937. The Chinese spent years fighting the Japanese before the war in Europe started. Events from this theater of war include, for example, the rape of Nanking, the use of chemical and biological weapons by the Japanese, comfort women and other atrocities that are often overlooked by westerners.  

Other potential dates for the start of WWII.

• October 3, 1935, the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy. The failure of the League of Nations to stop Italy is often cited as the start of World II. 
• March 7, 1936, the remilitarization of the Rhineland. In violation of the treaty that ended WWI, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland. This was the European powers' first real chance to stop Hitler. 
• October 1, 1938, the annexing of the Sudetenland. When the United Kingdom and France handed the Sudetenland over to Germany the world lost the last chance to prevent the war in Europe.

When did World War II start?

I asked my wife that question, she gave me the best answer I have heard in a long time. She thought for a second and said, "that depends on where you were." Of course, history hates answers like that, so I have three dates I feel that are valid.

December 7, 1941

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the event that brought the last of the major players into the war and unified the war in Asia and the war in Europe into one globe-spanning World War. It also brought the United Kingdom into the war in Asia. Before that event, there was a war in Europe and a war in Asia. It is not a big stretch to say that on December 7th, those two wars became one World War. In this case, I say that December 7th was the end of the beginning of World War II.

September 18, 1931

Japan invading Manchuria was the start of the war between China and Japan. That was the first military conflict between the two of the nations that fought WWII. This seems as valid of a start date as any. The invasion of Manchuria could be seen as the beginning of the beginning of World War II. 

My choice for the beginning of World War II is November 11, 1918.

The end of World War I was the start of World War II. In Europe, the decision to not totally defeat Germany combined with the failure to create a just peace was the reason for the rise of the Nazis. Germany did not feel that they were defeated, but rather that they were betrayed. Combine that with the oppressive war reparations that the allies imposed on Germany and you have the perfect conditions for the rise of the Nazi party. In the Pacific, Japan was on the side of the allies and easily captured many of Germany's colonies. The ease of Japan's victories inspired both the massive expansion of the Japanese navy and the rise of militarism in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. The failure of the allies to truly end World War I did not just cause World War II but was also the reason that World War II ended the way it did. The US believed that a just peace was the only way to secure a lasting peace at the end of World War I. After much discussion, and finally the threat by France and the United Kingdom to not pay the loans the US gave the allies during the war, the US agreed to allow the punishment of Germany. At the end of World War II, the US and other allies were not going to accept anything but the complete defeat of Germany and Japan. After the war, the US worked hard to rebuild Germany and Japan, as well as the rest of western Europe and create a lasting peace and turn enemies into allies.