 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
. . . POLLS see "POLITICS" for related links There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men that public opinion. --Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American Congregational minister, _Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1887] If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing. --Mary Frances Berry (1938- ) Africa-American lawyer and administrator, in Brian Lanker's _I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America_ [1989], "Mary Frances Berry") A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. --Warren Buffett (1930- ) American business executive - "Fiasco in 1936 Survey Brought 'Science' To Election Polling" by Cynthia Crossen _The Wall Street Journal_ [2 October 2006] President Alf Landon? In the fall of 1936, the most influential poll in America, run by Literary Digest magazine, predicted that Mr. Landon, governor of Kansas, would trounce the Democratic incumbent, Franklin Roosevelt, with 57% of the popular vote. Literary Digest's poll was massive -- it sent out 10 million ballots that year -- and it had correctly forecast five previous presidential elections. There was widespread concern that the poll might create a bandwagon effect, giving Mr. Landon an even bigger victory. The poll could hardly have been more wrong. Mr. Roosevelt won the election with more than 60% of the popular vote; Mr. Landon carried only two states, Maine and Vermont. The failure of the Literary Digest and other, smaller polls, "will undoubtedly revive agitation for their abolition or control," wrote the New York Times. Kenneth McKellar, a Democratic senator from Tennessee, called the Literary Digest poll "wicked," and promised to sponsor legislation to put polling under federal supervision. Although by that time polling was not a young business, it was still operating in the statistical Dark Ages. First used around 1824, straw polls (named for the way farmers threw a fistful of straw in the air to see which way the wind was blowing) were often taken by traveling journalists or private citizens. They might ask everyone on a steamship or train how they intended to vote. [ . . . ] Literary Digest, a general-interest weekly founded in 1890, began doing straw polls in 1916. It mailed ballots to its subscribers, gradually building up a list with publicly available names of people who owned telephones and cars. At its peak, the magazine sent ballots to 20 million people, and employed 400 clerks to tally the returns. But magazine subscribers and owners of cars and telephones during the Great Depression tended to be more affluent than the average voter -- and more Republican. Indeed, in its 1936 pre-election report, the magazine reported that a skeptic had called its office to ask, "Has the Republican National Committee purchased the Literary Digest?" Commented the magazine, "Absurd and amusing." In its postelection report, however, the editors acknowledged that the poll undersampled some groups of voters. And whose fault was that? "We wonder why we get better cooperation in what we have always regarded as a public service from Republicans than we do from Democrats. Do Republicans live nearer mailboxes? Do Democrats generally disapprove of straw polls?" Even among the subset of people who received ballots, there was an element of self-selection. People with ample leisure were more likely to take the trouble to help Literary Digest. But plenty of the "lower strata," as the magazine called them, voted that year. There was at least one man who relished the Literary Digest fiasco: George Gallup. Mr. Gallup, a market researcher and syndicated columnist, had begun experimenting with so-called scientific methods of polling, and in July 1936, he predicted Literary Digest would call the election erroneously. He himself projected a Democratic victory, although his margin turned out to be way off. Mr. Gallup, of course, was one of the leaders of the pack that predicted Thomas Dewey would beat Harry Truman in 1948. Pollsters' methods and tools -- and confidence -- had improved so much in the dozen years since 1936 that they decided they didn't need to collect more data after October. In a postelection poll by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, 14% of Truman voters said they made up their minds in the two weeks before the election, and 3% said they decided on Election Day. "Everyone believes in public-opinion polls," joked the radio comic Goodman Ace. "Everybody from the man on the street all the way up to President Thomas E. Dewey." By 1948, Literary Digest was long gone. It had already been facing financial problems when its poll flopped; it suspended publication in 1938 and later merged with Time magazine. Its editor in 1936, Wilfred J. Funk, derided Mr. Gallup's methodology, saying mockingly that the Digest's poll had never been able to discover "how many rich men, poor men, G-men, racketeers and candlestick makers" voted in any given election. Twelve years later, a reporter asked Mr. Funk to comment on the Truman-Dewey polls. "I do not want to seem to be malicious," Mr. Funk said, "but I can't help but get a good chuckle out of this. ... I wonder if the word science will continue to be used with this type of public-opinion poll." - November saw China enter the [Korean War] with a rush. MacArthur's armies were driven back almost to Pusan again. Gallup polls of October had shown 64 percent of the public in favor of taking all Korea, rather than stopping at the prewar line. By January 1951 they showed 66 percent for getting out of Korea altogether. --Gallup Poll as summarized by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May in _Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers_ [1986] ^ In cinema theatres up & down the United Kingdom newsreels showing Adolf Hitler's troops rupturing the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by marching into the Rhineland were received with murmurs of approval, applause and even cheers as last week opened. Newsreels of Poilus marching up to defend the French frontier were almost everywhere received by Britons in silence. Inquiring reporters for Baron Beaverbrook stopped 5,000 citizens to ask: "Do you on the whole prefer the French or the Germans?" The answer, blazoned next day in London's Daily Express, was that 21% had no preference, 24% preferred the French and 55% preferred the Germans. --"Germans Preferred" _Time_ [23 March 1936] ^ I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel?... It isn't polIs that count. It is right and wrong, and leadership - men with fortitude, honesty and a belief in the right that make epochs in the history of the world. --Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945-1953] The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all......People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation's pulse, you cannot be sure that the nation hasn't just run up a flight of stairs. --E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899-1985) American essayist and literary stylist, in "The New Yorker" [13 November 1948]  ;void(0)) POLLUTION . . see "NATURE" for related links And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills? --William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, _Milton_ [1810] "And did those feet in ancient time" Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are stangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song. --Rachel Carson (1907-1964) American marine biologist and author, _Silent Spring_ [1962] The sea is the universal sewer. --Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997) French underwater explorer, testimony before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics [28 January 1971] - ^^ Air quality had, for some time, been a concern of some cities: what kind of stuff were people forced to gulp into their lungs? A few cities had smoke ordinances as far back as the nineteenth century. Los Angeles became infamous for its smog - a noxious haze that smothered the mountains, hid the blue sky, and made people choke and wheeze. As is often the case, a dramatic tragedy was a strong catalyst for the clean-air movement. On October 29, 1948, a heavy fog or smog - the "Donora death fog"-enveloped the town of Donora, Pennsylvania. In Donora there was literally darkness at noon. People began to gasp for breath; they suffered from nausea and abdominal pains. The basement of a community center became a temporary morgue. A temperature inversion conspired with pollution from zinc and steel factories to choke off the breathable air supply and replace it with a thick, acrid, poisonous cloud. By most accounts, twenty people ended up dead, and seven thousand people - half of the town's population - had to be hospitalized. It was a national wakeup call. Federal and state health agencies launched an investigation - the first important effort to pin down the facts and dangers of air pollution. --Lawrence M. Friedman _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002] Ch. 7 "War and Postwar" p. 196 ^^ One of the few natural resources China has in abundance, coal accounts for three quarters of total energy consumption. The country's power stations and manufacturing plants are fueled overwhelmingly by coal. Factor in coal's dominant role in keeping people warm, along with the primitive technologies often employed, and it's no surprise that Chinese cities, especially in the industrial, frigid north, have some of the filthiest air on the planet. --Mark Hertsgaard (1956- ) "Our Real China Problem", Atlantic [November 1997] Heavy pollution may kill you in a hundred days, but without enough heat and food you die in three. --Chen Qi, op. cit. - They say oil causes pollution. A hundred years ago the streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want, anyway? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty, or die of typhoid fever at nine? --P.J. O'Rourke (1947- ) American political satirist In London this smoke is found to blight or destroy all vegetation ... Other phenomena are produced by its union with fogs, rendering them nearly opaque, and shutting out the light of the sun; it blackens the mud of the streets by its deposit of tar, while the unctuous mixture renders the foot-pavement slippery ... It must in a future age be ... difficult to believe that the Londoners could have resided in the dense atmosphere of coal-smoke above described. --Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) British author and publisher, _A Morning's Walk from London to Kew_ (1817) Approximately 80 per cent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources. --Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) U.S. President [1981-1989] and former Hollywood actor, _Sierra_ [10 September 1980] As the king learns from the compaints of prelates and magnates of his realm, who frequently come to London for the benefit of the Commonwealth by his order, and ... of his citizens and all his people dwelling there ... that the workmen [in kilns] ... now burn them and construct them of sea-coal instead of brush wood or charcoal, from the use of which sea-coal an intolerable smell diffuses itself throughout the neighbouring places and the air is greatly affected to the annoyance of the magnates, citizens and others there dwelling and to the injury of their bodily health. --Royal proclamation addressing the pollution from industry [1307], in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 211; Cohan & Major explain: Despite fines on the first offence and the threat of demolishing the furnaces on a second, London was already - as it remained - a polluted town. I have seen the future of much of the Pacific Rim, and I am scared out of my mind. One quarter of the population of the planet, certainly about 1.2 billion Chinese, are about to transform their standard of living, and in the process, wreck a large proportion of the globe. --John Sergeant British architect, _Newsweek_ [9 May 1994] (after a tour of the Far East) Casa: I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. --William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, _Julius Caesar_ [1599] I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness--chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in the sea. When an Indian village became too deep in its own filth, the inhabitants moved. And we have no place in which to move. --John Ernst Steinbeck (1902-1968) American novelist, _Travels With Charley_ [1962] A sort of black smoke covers the city. The sun seen through it is a disc without rays. Under this half-daylight 300,000 human beings are ceaselessly at work ... From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilization makes its miracles, and civilized man is turned back almost into a savage. --Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian and politician, on Manchester, England, in _Journeys to England and Ireland_ [1835] - Although I'm sometimes pessimistic about man's future, I don't believe him to be innately evil. I'm more worried about his insatiable curiosity than I am about his poor character; his pre- occupation with the moon is disturbing to me, particularly since his own rivers run dirty and his air is getting fouler every year. --E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899-1985) American essayist and literary stylist, in a letter to Judith W. Preusser [25 February 1966] - Sign, sign, everywhere a sign Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign? --The Five Man Electrical Band _Signs_ [1971] (song) (Lyrics by Les Emmerson) TOPICAL [ . . . ] Outdoor advertising, one of the oldest forms of advertising, is reinventing itself. The $23 billion industry is introducing digital technology to change ads faster, new ways of measuring viewers, and billboards that beam information to cellphones. As a result, outdoor advertising companies -- which provide billboards, posters and video screens in public places -- are now seeing bigger gains than many competitors. [ . . . ] Around the world, spending on outdoor advertising last year was $23.2 billion, up 6.1% from the year earlier, according to ZenithOptimedia, a media buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA. Spending on television ads was $146.8 billion, up 3.8%, the group says. Global spending on Internet advertising was slightly less than on outdoor, at $18.1 billion, but up 28.77% from the year before. [ . . . ] --Aaron O. Patrick "Technology Boosts Outdoor Ads As Competition Becomes Fiercer" _The Wall Street Journal_ [28 August 2006] ----- nebulous (adj.) ['ne-byê-lês] Like or relating to a nebula (an interstellar mass of cosmic gas and/or dust); vague, blurred, unclear, as a nebulous promise; cloudy, hazy, as a nebulous view of the canyon. turbid TUR-bid, adjective: 1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear; -- used of liquids of any kind. 2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc. 3. Disturbed; confused; disordered. Ex.: Rough or smooth, the Irish Sea at Blackpool is always turbid. Beneath the murk float unspeakable things. --David Walker, "Is Labour right to end its affair with Blackpool? YES says David," _Independent_, [26 March 1998] . . see "MONEY" for related links Over the hill to the poorhouse I'm trudgin' my weary way. --John B. Bogart (1848-1921) American journalist, _Over the Hill to the Poorhouse_, Stanza 1 You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. --Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British Conservative statesman, Prime Minister [1940-1945, 1951-1955], (Quoted in _Point International_ [1 November 1976]) ^ Herford, Oliver (1863-1935) American humorist, illustrator, and writer of light verse. Herford was short of money in the early days of his career. The manager of his hotel, aware of his guest's precarious financial situation, did not insist on immediate payment, but simply added any money owing at the end of a week to the bill for the following week. One day, as the two men passed in the hotel foyer, the manager asked Herford if he had received his latest bill. Herford simply replied, 'Yes.' 'Is that all you have to say?' 'At the moment, yes,' said the humorist. 'But if the bill gets any larger, I'll have to ask you for a larger room.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ ^ Bennett Cerf tells about Fiorello La Guardia presiding over the police court.... One bitter cold day they brought a trembling old man before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. His family, he said, was starving. 'I've got to punish you,' declared La Guardia. 'The law makes no exception. I can do nothing but sentence you to a fine of ten dollars.' But the Little Flower was reaching into his pocket as he added, 'Well, here's the ten dollars to pay our fine. And now I remit the fine.' He tossed a ten-dollar bill into his famous sombrero. 'Futhermore,' he declared, 'I'm going to fine everybody in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread in order to eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to this defendant!' The hat was passed and an incredulous old man, with a light of heaven in his eyes, left the courtroom with a stake of forty-seven dollars and fifty cents. {Bennett Cerf (1898-1971) American author, humorist, and publisher Fiorello La Guardia (1882-1947) American politician who served three terms as mayor of New York City [1933-1945]} ^ Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. --Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) American preacher and author; attributed ----- alms (noun) [ahmz] Money or other valuables given to charity or the poor. hardscrabble HARD-skrab-uhl, adjective: 1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty. 2. Marked by poverty. penurious (adj.) 1. Having very little money 2. Not generous with money ;void(0)) POPE JOHN PAUL II . . see "RELIGION" for related links see "PEOPLE" for related links Pope John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (1920-2005) The first non-Italian Pope since the 16th century see "RELIGION for related links see "PEOPLE" for related links My John Paul, not surprisingly, is the political Pope, the Polish Pope, the one who helped to bring down the Soviet Empire. There is no doubt in my mind about the role he played in this grand spectacle of history. Forget all the rather silly theories about cooperation with the CIA, or some "holy alliance" with President Reagan; he made a difference not on the account of some covert shenanigans but because of who he was, what he said and what he did out in the open, in front of the billions. If you distill it all into one word, it is this: hope. He gave us hope. By us, I mean initially the Poles, the troublemakers who in 1980 started rocking the communist boat. --Arthur Chrenkoff, http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/04/my-pope.html - The Pope liked [Ronald] Reagan for a number of reasons. He rightly recognized him as a Protestant who was friendly to Catholicism, and who counted many Catholics among his intimates . . . Of course, John Paul II was overjoyed when Reagan later became the first president to extend diplomatic recognition to the Vatican--a move long resisted by Protestants as far back as the administration of Harry Truman. Reagan and John Paul II were in many ways a perfect match, their respective religious faiths giving them an extraordinary amount of common ground. The Pope himself had suffered an assassination attempt in 1981, only six weeks after Reagan's, and each man was able to rise above his personal suffering when it came to his assassin: just as John Paul II forgave his would-be assassin, even visiting him in prison, Reagan prayed for forgiveness for Hinckley. John Paul's passionate association with his Polish homeland, moreover, rendered him a fierce and faithful ally to Reagan in their shared anti- communism. The two appeared to believe equally in God's will, and shared a faith-based optimism that made them hopeful about the future. The Pope, in his own words, held a self-professed "conviction that the destiny of all nations lies in the hands of a merciful Providence." One June 7, 1982, the two men sat face-to-face for the first time. They discussed the assassination attempts, as well as their shared sense of special purpose. In a later cover story for _Time_ magazine, Carl Bernstein reported that both the Pope and Reagan believed that God had saved them for a chosen mission--that mission, the article implied, was the defeat of communism in the Soviet bloc. --Paul Kengor (1966- ) _God and Ronald Reagan_ [2004], "God's Will and the Demise of the Soviet Empire" - Everyone has spoken this past week of John Paul II's role in the defeat of Soviet communism and the liberation of Eastern Europe. We don't know everything, or even a lot, about the quiet diplomatic moves--what happened in private, what kind of communications the pope had with the other great lions of the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher. And others, including Bill Casey, the tough old fox of the CIA, and Lech Walesa of Solidarity. But I think I know the moment Soviet communism began its fall. It happened in public. Anyone could see it. It was one of the great spiritual moments of the 20th century, maybe the greatest. It was the first week in June 1979. Europe was split in two between east and west, the democracies and the communist bloc--police states controlled by the Soviet Union and run by local communist parties and secret police. John Paul was a new pope, raised to the papacy just eight months before. The day after he became pope he made it clear he would like to return as pope to his native Poland to see his people. [...] On June 2, 1979, the pope arrived in Poland. What followed will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. He knelt and kissed the ground, the dull gray tarmac of the airport outside Warsaw. The silent churches of Poland at that moment began to ring their bells. The pope traveled by motorcade from the airport to the Old City of Warsaw. The government had feared hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands would line the streets and highways. By the end of the day, with the people lining the streets and highways plus the people massed outside Warsaw and then inside it-- all of them cheering and throwing flowers and applauding and singing- -more than a million had come. In Victory Square in the Old City the pope gave a mass. Communist officials watched from the windows of nearby hotels. The pope gave what papal biographer George Weigel called the greatest sermon of John Paul's life. Why, the pope asked, had God lifted a Pole to the papacy? Perhaps it was because of how Poland had suffered for centuries, and through the 20th century had become "the land of a particularly responsible witness" to God. The people of Poland, he suggested, had been chosen for a great role, to understand, humbly but surely, that they were the repository of a special "witness of His cross and His resurrection." He asked then if the people of Poland accepted the obligations of such a role in history. The crowd responded with thunder. "We want God!" they shouted, together. "We want God!" What a moment in modern history: We want God. From the mouths of modern men and women living in a modern atheistic dictatorship. [...] And now he is dead. It is fitting and not at all surprising that Rome, to its shock, has been overwhelmed with millions of people come to see him for the last time. The line to view his body in St. Peter's stretched more than a mile. His funeral tomorrow will be witnessed by an expected two billion people, the biggest television event in history. And no one, in Poland or elsewhere, will be able to edit the tape to hide what is happening. John Paul gave us what may be the transcendent public spiritual moment of the 20th century. "We want God." The greatest and most authentic cry of the human heart. They say he asked that his heart be removed from his body and buried in Poland. That sounds right, and I hope it's true. They'd better get a big box. --Peggy Noonan (1950- ) Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, 'We Want God' http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006523 & see: We know what the pope has achieved. Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing. More than one year after he spoke these words, we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations. Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us. --Lech Walesa (1943- ) Polish trade unionist and statesman, quoted at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/9898 - The pontificate of John Paul II has been very difficult for the culture of dissent. Karol Wojtyla was exactly what the Lite Brigade wanted as pope in 1978: a modern European intellectual, widely traveled, multilingual, happy and confident, with extensive pastoral experience and terrific public presence. Within months, it became evident that the Lite Brigade, having gotten what it wanted, now rued the day when it had made its wish. So the attack on John Paul II as a man out-of-step with modernity began. The truth of the matter is that John Paul II is the first truly modern pope, in the sense of a pope with a thoroughly modern intellectual formation. What he had, though, was a very different reading of modernity than the Lite Brigade. He did not propose to surrender to modernity. He proposed to convert it. --George Weigel, _The Courage to be Catholic_ [2002] -- To cash in on Pope John Paul II's visit to Los Angeles, a local entrepreneur printed thousands of T-shirts with the slogan "Los Angeles Welcomes the Pope" in Spanish, but incorrectly uses the noun "la papa," so shirts read "Los Angeles Welcomes the Potato." --Jon Winokur _War Between the State_ [2004], "A Selective History of California: 1987" . . see "RELIGION" for related links What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine. --John Adams (1735-1826) First VP and second President of the United States end page | PACIFISM & PAIN | PAINTING - PARENTING | PARIS - PASSPORTS | PAST (THE) - PATRIOTISM | PEACE - PERCENTAGES | PEOPLE | PERCEPTIONS - PERSUASION | PESSIMISM - PHOBIAS | PHONIES - PHYSICS | PI - PLANS | PLACES | PLANTS - POETRY | POETS - POLITICAL PARTIES | POLITICS & POLITICIANS | POLLS - POPES | POPEYE - POTENTIAL | POVERTY | POWER | PRACTICALITY - PRAYER | PREACHERS - PREPARED (BE) | PRESENT (THE) - PRETENDING | PRETENTIONS - PRIVACY | PROBLEMS - PROGRESSIVES | PROGRESS - PROPAGANDA | PROPOSALS - PUBLIC (THE) | PUBLIC OPINION - PURPOSE (ON HAVING A) | QUALITIES - QUIPS | QUIRKS - QUOTATIONS | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
||