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About Me
Name: Carl Bryant
Occupation: Automation
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Previous Posts
- say what?
- when in doubt... shake it out
- brought to you by the letter S
- the pope game
- Internet Paper Poetry
- Overcomplicating the blog
- programmed for plagiarism
- writer's block
- fun with microsoft paint
- I try my hand at a comic strip
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!
hey, isn't that what's his face on the right?
Hi Ka, Karen, and (dang sarah - why can't your name start with a K.)
Whatshisface is safely in the RV. Those suits only offer so much protection against contagion, you know.
Thanks for stopping by my blog, Carl. I wish I knew how to do all the high tech things you do here. I'm still trying to figure out how to link to other blogs.
Hey CE!
It's great to read you again. I discovered your blog through Rus Bowden.
I still swear by your CBE.
You know, I've been haunted about this study and I think we're being a little too hard on 'Poetry in America'.
Sure their definitions suck. And it's suspicious that their findings so wonderfully dovetail with their sponsor's initiatives. But really, isn't that what we've come to expect from studies?
The study confirmed what the foundation needed it to confirm to enable the foundation to pat itself on the back for progress in fulfilling it's mission statement. But the study also shows the foundation has stuff left to do when measured against that mission statement. Lucky they have initiatives already in place, isn't it? Studies like these are used to justify fundings.
So why are we picking on the study? Just because their definitions suck? Just because a foundation sponsors a study that, surprise, confirms what it needs it to confirm?
We weren't this hard on tobacco company sponsored studies, drug company sponsored studies, warmonger sponsored studies, were we? We should be ashamed of ourselves, picking on a poor, defenseless, poetry study this way.
Carl, Ka, Karen, you're hard-hearted heathens. How could you be so cruel?
-blue
Beau, I'm ashamed of myself. I'd write a retraction, but what's the point? As the study says:
Nobody gets their poetry info from the internet.
Seriously, though...
The Foundation has made this study publicly available for use by our nation's educators, and dishonesty isn't the best educational policy.
Moral imperatives aside... It’s a funny topic, and worthy of parody (as is as ABC’s programming.)
The study leaves itself wide open to satire. It deliberately and carefully eliminates non-professionally published (non-print) poetry from its data, then reaches laughable conclusions like “people aren’t reading poetry on the internet.”
[blogger's note: The internet has asked me to pass along the following letters: “WTF”
I have no idea what they mean.]
It found it amusing that the researchers had to toss out a third of the responses because many readers refused to play along with the study's narrow definitions of poetry ("something else" is the term the researchers coined to group poetry responses that didn't meet the conditions of the study.)
If this parody had been terribly far from the truth, it wouldn’t have been funny.
Hilarious!
BTW, here's the definition for the subjects in the study:
"In this study, I will ask
you questions about poems or poetry. Poetry is unique because it uses rhythm and language in verses to create images in the mind of the reader. Sometimes poetry rhymes, but not always. I will use the words 'poetry' or 'poems' to refer to verses intended to be understood as poems, not as part of something else such as rap, song lyrics, Bible verses, or greeting card messages."
Capital "P" Poetry now means any poetry backed by an organization with multi-millions in capital, Poetry, for instance.
I was on the phone today with AOL and then Verizon, then someone else at Verizon, then someone else, then AOL then Verizon, getting up to speed, just trying to spend my money with them. A nightmare.
So here are three big organizations, responsible at some level for communication among human beings: Verizon, AOL, and Poetry. Somewhere around the $100,000,000 mark, studies will show, the ability of an organization to understand humanity becomes NFG, which stands for "not very good".
Your picture, Carl, and my experiences on the phone today, make me realize, not only the WTF factor, but this NFG factor as well.
Yours,
Rus
Damn, Rus...
AOhell, verizon, and poetry on the same day?
You poor, poor man. Have a scotch, quickly.
You have an interesting debate playing out here! I thought the picture and captions were high quality satire.
Thanks, Russell.
But it's only a debate because Beau is kind enough to play devil's advocate.
It's tough to find a true supporter of the Poetry (magazine) in America study who isn't on the payroll. Wait a minute...
Beau? Did you get a grant?
No grants yet.
But Carl, I figured they needed all the help they can get. And who knows, maybe I could come away with a job, something with money attached. All I need do is skinny-up my definitions of poetry and pretend I don't read poems on the net, then presto - employment - maybe.
Of course I do have that problem of not really existing as far as they're concerned, but that's a trifle, isn't it? The hassle of being almost excluisively an internet creation - worse, a traitor who favors reading poetry on the web. Well, maybe it wasn't a good idea after all.
And yet I still do feel, in the context of offensive studies, this one is much more benign than, say, Reynolds sponsored studies of the addictive nature of cigarettes, Merck sponsored studies on the safety of Vioxx, or Cheney sponsored studies on the possibilities of WMD in Iraq.
See what I mean - it's a matter of context, as always. -blue
Exclusive poetic use of the present indicative tense is a weapon of mass destruction.
And it causes hives.