Ralph Keyes's Blog, page 2

Ambivalence About Google

I can tell from the way my book The Quote Verifier gets referred to online these days that most of those who refer to it have only seen that work on Google Books. Needless to say this doesn't please me. Better they should buy a copy, or at least look at it in the library. Recently, however, I wanted to try to verify a quotation used by Paul Krugman in his New York Times column: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Feeling Immortal

Years ago, while doing research for a book on risk-taking (Chancing It: Why We Take Risks), I interviewed lots of skydivers, rock climbers and the wire walker Philippe Petit. Even though such activities have caused countless fatalities, all told me they were sure they wouldn't be one. Why? "Because I'm good at it." The implication was that others – especially those who died – were not. This has some bearing on the otherwise intelligent people who continue to talk on cell phones while...

Knees and Butter

I've been a runner for decades, fully aware that the pounding was probably destroying my knees. A recent article in the Times says that to the contrary, this longtime conventional wisdom is wrong. Studies have found runners' knees are stronger than those of non-runners, and less susceptible to injury. The same issue of the Times had an article saying that – contrary to previous assumptions – weight training was good for the arms of those who'd had mastectomies, not bad for them. This...

Learn something every day.

During a Los Angeles radio show about retrotalk, a caller told me that someone had recently told him, ''Don't gaslight me.'' The host, Patt Morrison – more of a movie buff than me – said that this alludes to the 1944 film Gaslight in which a man played by Charles Boyer tries to drive his wife (played by Ingrid Bergman) insane by making the gaslight in their house go up and down, and then telling her she's seeing things. "Gaslighting'' someone, therefore, means trying to drive them crazy....

Rather be Canada?

In our debate about health care, the clinching argument by opponents of significant reform is usually "Do you want a health care system like Canada's?" Any time I've asked a relative or friend in Canada whether they want a health care system like that in the United States, the answer has always been "No way!"

E-Books and Real Books

Several years ago we had to decide what kind of piano to buy for our children. Electronic keyboards were attractive because of their size, economy and versatility. But most reviews I read compared them to "real pianos." ("Sounds almost like a real piano.") This raised the question: if you're looking for a product being judged by its resemblance to another product, why not buy the one that sets the standard? That's what we did. We bought, and still have, a sturdy Hamilton upright...

Negotiators or Escorts?

When such as Bill Clinton, or Bill Richardson, or Jesse Jackson travel abroad to "negotiate" the release of hostages, aren't they more like escorts sent to accompany home those whose release has already been negotiated?

Men Among Men

Would Sgt. Crowley have arrested Dr. Gates if he'd been alone?  The reason I ask is a longstanding observation that when in the presence of each other, men tend to behave far differently than when they're by themselves, or in the presence of women.  My favorite illustration is a study in which drivers were observed as they attempted to execute a tricky left turn against heavy traffic to enter a shopping mall. The longest average time recorded for making this turn, 17 seconds, was recorded ...

Chauncey Gardiner

A New Yorker writer recently called Iran's president "Chauncey Gardinerish." In the 1979 movie Being There, Peter Sellers played a dim-bulb gardener named Chance who is, when dressed in the well-tailored suits of his late employer, is taken to be an upper-crust executive named Chauncey Gardiner (because he introduces himself as "Chance . . . the gardener"). His inane observations are confused with genuine profundity and he becomes a media star. Eventually Gardiner is touted as a possible...