From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 06:50:42 MST
Greg Burch:
>Sometimes, the most acute observers of domestic events are expariates.
>But some things are hard to understand without "ground truth," as they
>call it.
OK.
My news information gathering scheme, in order of weight:
1) go to the place directly (and observe and converse)
2) talk to people from there
3) read papers from that place (translated if needed)
4) The Economist
5) Other web news sources
So then the ground truth is 1).
I've not been to the U.S. for one year. There were some noticeable
differences between my previous gap (June-November 2001),
especially with regard to patriotism.
However I've talked to people [2)] from the U.S., both strangers
and friends and family, so I'm not in the dark from the personal
side, but still not the 'ground truth'. My ground truth is here,
several countries in Europe, actually.
I will be in the U.S. late next month, and then again next
year, more visits, so I'll know something about the 'ground
truth', after one year.
So then -
A small boy, alone in the forest, heard such a beautiful song that he
went to see who was singing and, discovering a bird- the Bird of the
Most Beautiful Song in the Forest- he brought it back to the camp to
be fed. His father was annoyed at having to give food to a mere bird,
but the boy pleaded, and the bird was fed. Next day its song was heard
again, and the boy again returned with it to the camp. The father was
more annoyed than before, but again the bird was fed. Then a third
day, and again, the song! This time, taking the bird from his son, the
father told him to run along; and when the boy was gone, the man
killed the bird, and with the bird he killed the song, and with the
song, himself. He dropped dead, completely dead, and was dead forever. (*)
>It's hard sometimes to tell whether a keeled-over canary is a harbinger
>of our own illness -- or just a sick canary ... That was my only point.
I'll hear if the bird is singing.
(*)
--Fable of the Pygmies of the Ituri forest, as described by Colin
Turnbull in _The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo_
(New York, 1962)
Amara
amara@amara.com
www.amara.com
-- through December 2002: Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Cosmic Dust Group, Heidelberg, Deutschland from January 2003: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, Roma, Italia
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:24 MST