Pollermann uses auditory analysis software to map seven parameters of a person's speech, including pitch modulation, volume and fluency, to create a voice profile. She then compares that profile with the speaker's facial expressions, using as a guide a set of facial expressions mapped out by Paul Ekman, called the Facial Action Coding System, to develop an overall picture of how they express themselves.More here.
Her analysis shows that McCain's voice changes little in pitch as he speaks, and so conveys very little emotion or impact. Whether he is addressing positive prospects or discussing sad facts, his voice always sounds the same.
Additionally, McCain's voice and facial movements often do not match up, says Pollermann, and he often smiles in a manner that commonly conveys sarcasm when addressing controversial statements. "That might lead to what I would call a lack of credibility."
People are unlikely to trust statements made in a flat tone, particularly when they do not match the person's facial expressions. According to Pollermann's analysis, it may not make any difference that McCain does not pepper his speeches with spin, if the way he talks does not strike people as believable.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Is John McCain clinically depressed?
The voice analysis profile for John McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed, says Geneva, Switzerland, based Branka Zei Pollermann, a psychologist who uses voice analysis software in her work with patients.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Bodhi Tree
Bodhi [बोधि] is both the Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English as "enlightenment." The word "buddha" means "one who has achieved bodhi." Bodhi is also frequently translated as "awakening."The Buddha [c. 563 BCE-483 BCE] sat under a Bodhi tree observing his breathing when the path to Nirvana was revealed.
All the King's Men
Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, a character based on Louisiana politician Huey Long in All the King’s Men, for which Crawford won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Actor.
Jack, there's something on everybody. Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. He passes from the stink of the dydie to the stench of the shroud. There's ALWAYS something.Robert Rossen's screenplay based on Robert Penn Warren's novel available here.
The People's Republic of Wall Street
A chart -- and graphic -- showing the history of U.S. government bailouts since 1970, calculated in 2008 dollars here. Socialism ain't cheap.
Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able but not willing?
Then He is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither willing nor able?
Then why call him God?
- Epicurus [341-271 BCE]
For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by aponia, the absence of pain and fear, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space. [source here]
"I believe in nothing"
"I consider belief of every kind, from astrology to every elevated religion and all great ideologies, to be superfluous and mortally dangerous. We no longer need such things. We ought to work out different strategies against misery and injustice, war and catastrophes."- Gerhard Richter [born 1932]
A Gordon Burn's profile.
Religious Secularist
If John McCain knew how to use the Internet he'd be steamed. A Brit, a Canadian, two Americans.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
CLARISSA SAUNDERS
My dear Senator, have you the faintest idea of what it takes to get a Bill passed?JEFFERSON SMITH
I know--but you--you're going to help.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
If I were *triplets*, I couldn't--. Look, Senator--let me give you a rough idea. A member has a Bill in mind--like you--a camp. Right?JEFFERSON SMITH
Right.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Fine. Now, what does he do? He's got to sit down first and write it up. The where, when, why, how--and everything else. That takes time--JEFFERSON SMITH
Oh, but this one is so simple.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
I see. *This* one is so simple--JEFFERSON SMITH
And with your help--CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Oh, yes. And *I'm* helping. Simple--and I'm helping. So we knock this off in record-breaking time of--let's say three or four days--JEFFERSON SMITH
Oh, just a day--CLARISSA SAUNDERS
A *day*!JEFFERSON SMITH
Tonight.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Tonight.JEFFERSON SMITH
(Controlling herself in a quiet burn)
Look--uh--I don't want to seem to be complaining, Senator--but in all civilized countries, there's an institution called *dinner*--!
(laughing a little)CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Oh--dinner. Yes. Well, I'm hungry, too. I thought--maybe--we could have something brought in--you know, like big executives who eat off trays. You see, we've got to light into this and get it going--
Uh-huh. Well, dinner comes in on trays. We're executives. And we light into this. It is dawn. Your Bill is ready. You go over there and introduce it--JEFFERSON SMITH
How?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
You get to your feet in the Senate and present it. Then you take the Bill and put it in a little box--like a letter box--on the side of the rostrum. Just hold it between thumb and forefinger and drop it in. Clerks read it and refer it to the right committee--JEFFERSON SMITH
Committee, huh?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Committee.JEFFERSON SMITH
Why?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
That's how Congress--or any large body--is run. All work has to be done by committee.JEFFERSON SMITH
Why?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Look--committees--small groups of Senators--have to sift a Bill down--look into it--study it--and report to the whole Senate. You can't take a Bill no one knows anything about and discuss it among ninety-six men. Where would you get?JEFFERSON SMITH
Yes, I see that.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Good. Where are we?JEFFERSON SMITH
Some committee's got it.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Yes. They give it to a *sub*-committee, where they really give it a going over--hold hearings--call in people and ask questions--then report back to the bigger committee--where it's considered some more, changed, amended, or whatever. Days are going by, Senator. Days--weeks. Finally, they think it's quite a Bill. It goes over to the House of Representatives for debate and a vote. *But* it's got to wait its turn on the calendar--JEFFERSON SMITH
Calendar?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
That's the order of business. Your Bill has to stand *way* back there in line unless the Steering Committee decides it is important enough to be--JEFFERSON SMITH
What's that?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
What?JEFFERSON SMITH
The Steering Committee.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
(depressed)JEFFERSON SMITH
Do you really think we're getting anywhere.
Yes. Sure. What's a Steering Committee?CLARISSA SAUNDERS
A committee of the majority party leaders. They decide when a Bill is important enough to be moved up toward the head of the list--JEFFERSON SMITH
*This* is.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Pardon me--*this* is. Where are we now?JEFFERSON SMITH
We're over in the House.CLARISSA SAUNDERS
Yes. House. More amendments--more changes--and the Bill goes back to the Senate--and *waits its turn on the calendar again*. The Senate doesn't like what the house did to the Bill. They make more changes. The House doesn't like *those* changes. Stymie. So they appoint men from each house to go into a huddle called a conference and battle it out. Besides that, all the lobbyists interested give cocktail parties for and against--government departments get in their two cents' worth--cabinet members--budget bureaus--embassies. Finally, if the Bill is alive after all this vivisection, it comes to a vote. Yes, sir--the big day finally arrives. And--nine times out of ten, they vote it down.
(Taking a deep breath) Are you catching on, Senator?
The entire 1939 script is available here.
Dido
Jean Raoux [1677-1734], Dido and Aeneas [c.1730]...opens in medias res, dropping the reader right into the heart of the story. A small band of Trojans, led by a young prince from the fallen city, is wandering around the Mediterranean in search of a place to resettle and eke out an existence that might, in some small part, mirror the greatness that was once Troy. In Book I, "The Trojans Reach Carthage," Virgil sets the tone for the entire work. The travel weary Aeneas is introduced to the Carthaginian queen, Dido, and their tragic love relationship is set in place. Book I does much to establish the key principle that readers in both Roman and Medieval times found so important: the virtue of emotional balance and control over rampant, passionate emotions. Virgil's epic is really a story about how to maintain one's emotional balance. It presents a distrustful view of anything that is not completely level headed.
The Aeneid is a story of suffering and hardship but not a tragedy. The hero must fight an inward battle to overcome his own instincts and emotions in order to achieve his goal.
Suddenly, what we see in The Aeneid is the realization that humankind exists to struggle both with nature and with its own nature; the inner battle can be won only if the hero is as strong and smart inwardly as he is outwardly.There are many temptations that Aeneas must resist, the most significant among these being the Carthaginian queen, Dido, who offers him an easy life but not the life that is prophesied for him. When Dido offers Aeneas and his band a refuge because of her "fierce love" for him, he declines, because his destiny, what the gods have promised, dictates that he must move forward to the new Troy. He can get there only if he blinkers himself to all other options.
Book IV, which tells the story of the love affair between the widowed Aeneas and Dido, ends tragically when, as Aeneas sails away with his followers to pursue his destiny in Italy, she commits suicide atop the harbor tower. The suggestion is that Dido is foolish when she gives all for love "in the mad heat of a sudden passion," and that she lets her emotions get the better of her. Love, in the Virgilian world, is based on devotion and understanding, not on hormones and pheromones. In reaction to her death, Aeneas seems cold, almost cardboard, in his insensitivity, yet Virgil suggests that personal love is a minor consideration in the grand scheme of things. Love for one's country and for the destiny that rests upon the shoulders of an individual are far more important.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Bonfire of the Vanities
The Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola [1452-1498] preached the apocalyptic depravity of the Renaissance and upon the deathbed conversion of Lorenzo de Medici il Magnifico [1449-1492] became the defacto leader of Florence until his execution.
[The children of Florence went] door to door, collecting cosmetics, mirrors, fine clothes, and the like from Florentines who were conflicted about the humanism of the Renaissance, and the judgement of God that Savonarola told them it would bring down.A recipient of Medici patronage, Sandro Botticelli [1445-1510] added several of his own works to the fires.
I don't get it
A Freudian, a Jungian, and a Lacanian walk into a bar. The Freudian orders a cigar. The Jungian orders an Etruscan mask to conceal his face. "You cretins!" says the Lacanian. He then orders a beer, which, however, he does not desire.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Queen Elizabeth II's Libation
Her Majesty is held here in 1926 by her mother, who also enjoyed the Zaza.
1 part Gin
2 parts Dubonnet
poured over squared ice cubes
garnished with lemon slice
coup d'état
Iranians had a democracy until 1953 when the CIA's Operation Ajax deposed the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet, and installed an oil-responsive, anticommunist dictator Shah.
bolt
The New Scientist publishes the results of the calculations of a team of scientists who tried to determine how much faster Usain Bolt [born 1986] could have run the 100 meters last month had he not started celebrating 20 meters from the end. Their answer: 9.55. [Bolt ran the race in 9.69, which set a new world record.]
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
blinder
In a province of southwestern Bulgaria, Byzantine Bulgar-slayer Basil II [958-1025] won a crushing victory and, according to later legend, blinded 14,000 Bulgarian prisoners, leaving one man in every hundred with the sight in one eye to lead his comrades home.
Greek Tragedian
"Wisdom comes through suffering." [Aeschylus 525 BCE~456 BCE]
There were riots in more than 100 cities across America after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, on April 4th 1968. But that night there was calm in Indianapolis, Indiana:
RFK: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote. 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'"
The quotation Robert F. Kennedy used in his remarks on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. comes from the play Agamemnon by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus [525~456 BCE].
The quotation derives from Edith Hamilton's classic study, The Greek Way. The passage has been rendered in different ways by differnet translators.
What RFK attributes to "the Greeks" at the end of his speech -- "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world" -- has also been credited to Aeschylus but has not been found in any of his extant works.
The entire text of RFK's remarks is available here on the Kennedy Library's Website.
The quotation derives from Edith Hamilton's classic study, The Greek Way. The passage has been rendered in different ways by differnet translators.
What RFK attributes to "the Greeks" at the end of his speech -- "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world" -- has also been credited to Aeschylus but has not been found in any of his extant works.
The entire text of RFK's remarks is available here on the Kennedy Library's Website.
Monday, September 15, 2008
rebarbative
"Over the past couple of hours a lot of rebarbative, ulcerated and embittered people had been working hard at bedding their resentments down in sensory-deprivation tanks full of alcohol."- Will Self [born 1961], The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
publik skool
Michael Blowhard has no problem with this:
the central function of the publik skools is to churn out docile and obedient human resources with sufficient skills to do their jobs but lacking in the historical perspective or critical thinking ability to undermine their loyalty to the corporate state.
loner
Jacques-Louis David [1748-1825], The Oath of the HoratiiThe Roman Republic is at war, and the dispute is to be settled by mortal combat between three Roman brothers (the Horatii) and three enemy brothers (the Curatii). David shows the dramatic moment when the Horatii swear before their father their allegiance to the State, and a readiness to die on its behalf. But the story presents a difficult moral dilemma, for one of the Horatii brothers is married to one of the sisters of the Curatii, and a Horatii sister is betrothed to one of the Curatii brothers. They will choose self-sacrifice and loyalty to the Republic over family ties and personal emotion. The picture was commissioned by Louis XVI, who was guillotined in 1792.
More context.
Due to a facial disfigurement, David was a loner and near recluse who wrapped himself in his art at a young age.
"window dresser of tyranny."
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