Silver Lining?
It’s too early (or is it?) to look for a “silver lining” to the cloud of 01-07-11’s Arizona shootings, but talk–even some limited talk by politicians, of all things!–spurred by vitriolic lies from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind about causes of the shooting may well yield a silver lining to that dark cloud. One observation was highlighted by a reader, Don Rubottom, of a James Taranto piece,
“…all successful politicians have at least a capacity to imitate civility and compassion in a way that makes voters willing to believe them to be human.”
We would do well to take note of this observation and attempt to clearly discern the correlation between (and relationship or even causality, if any *heh*) the speech of politicians and their behavior. Sure, the other day, at the T-Shirt and Beer Bust Arizona “memorial” hosted by The Zero, da big Kenyan (Well? Wo? We don’t know and he ain’t showin’ his papers) spoke words of moderation and conciliation, mildly (Oh, so mildly) rebuking the recent Hivemind excretion of lying memes.
Well-coached, he departed only once, it seems, from the advance copy TOTUS was supposed to feed him (although I’ve not seen any report of whether that “ad lib” really was an ad lib or if it had been inserted into TOTUS’ feed into the “presidential sock puppet’s” mouth), and that was to emphasize the fact that the Hivemind’s rush to blame the shootings on Limbaugh, Palin and TEA Party rhetoric was uncalled for.
Apparently a lone adult is still on The Zero’s staff and was able to have substantial influence on the script TOTUS fed him.
So, were his parroted words sincere? Or were they just a reasonable facsimile of civility and compassion? From a contemporary leftard politician, I’m willing to accept a reasonable facsimile for now. It’s so refreshingly different, you know?
“TOTUS” for those who’ve been living on a strict Mennonite farm for the past few years, is “Telepromper of the United States”–The Zero’s external brain.
Amateur v. Professional
I’m clear on the “unpaid and doing it for the love of it” vs. “it’s my job; it’s what I do” difference between amateur and professional, but I’m bringing something out of comments to the front page to expand on just one other difference between amateurs and professionals, particularly the old saw that,
“Amateurs practice until they get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.”
I like to cook. At times, I love to cook. Over the years, my role in our family has evolved to the point where I am the primary cook for the family. And I’m pretty good, according to family reports and hits on my dishes at potlucks. 😉
But I am not a professional chef. Oh, I have “perfected” a few habits. My grip on a chef’s knife, chopping an onion (“tear free” and fast), certain recipes, etc.: all perfection or nearly so.
But apart from those, I am still an amateur cook by the criterion that says “professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.” Breakfast this a.m. is an example. Pan-poached eggs are a dish that I have down to near perfection. It’s an easy-peasy dish that also makes for easy-peasy cleanup. Still, one (at least this one :-)) can cock it up when caffeine-deprived, early in the a.m. And I nearly did.
First: 4 rashers of bacon, then 3 eggs (my Wonder Woman only wanted one egg). I pulled the wrong sized pan off the rack, an 8-inch skillet instead of the better-sized (for the bacon) 10-inch. Second mistake? I set the heat too high under the pan. Too high for the bacon, which would have been much too high for the eggs. I caught that, but not before I’d coated the pan with a nice payer of “non stick” cooked on bacon grease. *sigh* Meant more difficult cleanup down the road and more cooling off before I could cook the eggs.
OK, bacon on warm in the toaster oven. Eggs in the pan. Water. Lid. Everything from there on out was perfect. By the time the toast was done, so were the eggs, medium like we like them. Eggs on toast, bacon side, rescued breakfast, just harder than necessary cleanup of the “wrong” pan and a couple of crispier-than-preferred spots on the bacon.
Oh, well. I’m not a professional chef.
But you get the idea: “professionals” practice until they cannot get it wrong. I just need more practice.
(Of course, practice doesn’t make perfect, despite the old proverb. No, Practice simply makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. That’s why, once they’ve got it right, pros practice doing it right until doing it wrong is, well, not impossible but still very unlikely.)