Editor

Agenda: Drama

December 22, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I noticed something interesting in the recent British election in which Boris Johnson came out the majority winner. To put it in context, remember that the media all reported the race as too close to call, with Johnson’s party coming out with a plurality, resulting in a minority government.

The night of the election, the exit polling showed a smashing win for Johnson’s Conservatives, with a projected majority of 384 seats, and a smashing defeat for the previously reported polls. The British media reporting on the win projected that the final tally may not be 384, but that the particular poll in question had never been off by more than 15 seats and it was reliable to assume the majority would hold near 384.

Well, it didn’t. The final tally was 365. This is still a Conservative victory, but the media has cruised right on by the fact that their revered, never-wrong-by-15 poll was wrong by 19 – a greater-than 20 percent error.

This is significant. In today’s hyper-politically charged atmosphere, I think this fact is worth noting, as it goes to audience manipulation by the media. To be clear about media, I am one, have been for a while, and know what I’m saying.

The fact is, media outlets run on ads and ads run on audience. No audience hangs around to hear the end of a foregone race. It’s like last Sunday’s Kansas City Chiefs v. Chicago Bears game where people leave in the 4^th when the score hit 23 to 3. Life’s demands are pressing, and this one’s done.

So, it is in the media’s interests to create political drama to keep people’s attention from wandering off.

Concurrently, politicians need to advertise where the audience’s attention is focused, and they spend millions of dollars and spread the spend over years, so you have millions of ad dollars in play, a contentious political environment and a handful of national news outlets competing for their share of the millions.

Along come the polls. You may recall the 2016 election. I sent out an e-letter the morning of the election pointing out that I thought, despite every poll showing a landslide victory for Clinton, that there was something wrong in the polling reports, and I called a Trump win. I am not a cheerleader. I also do not have a history of making wrong calls. I did, however, have enough confidence in my sources and the way I read them that I called the election correctly, and was very lonely in that prediction until about 1:00 the next morning.

Does this mean I’m some kind of super-pundit? Not at all. It does, however, mean I have a great deal of skepticism about what the media is up to with its reporting, I watch other sources and I make sure I am educated about markets. At this point, I guess the upshot is that the credibility of polls is very suspicious, and it appears they are being manipulated by the media to generate excitement between the two parties as if they are each some kind of sports team, with the media being the beneficiary in both sports and politics.

And the kicker is, even if the press is acting totally outside the facts and is doing so for money and fame, there is essentially nothing we can do about it. The press is protected.

Another thing I am concerned about it is the manner the House has conducted its “impeachment” proceeding against Trump. If we take off our blue or red jerseys and just look at the facts, they seem to be concerning.

For example, take the existence or non-existence of the “whistleblower.” The lawmakers and pundits are crawling all over the concept of whistleblower like a colony of ants. “Can we call him? Should we call him? Is he protected? Should he be protected…..” Endless.

A better question, it seems to me, is, “What if the whistleblower is actually Christopher Steele, Adam Schiff, Rod Rosenstein or James Comey?” If it is, then anonymity would work against the people.

I was a whistleblower, once. I was working my way through college and ended up repossessing furniture for a rent-to-own scam – er, company. I was also working with the county attorney. The outfit in question was doing stuff like letting a customer miss a payment early in the contract, letting them pay out the (outrageous) contract, then invoking the repo clause based on a late payment months or years earlier. This, by the way, is the contractual essence of the Whitewater scam that the Clintons were involved in.

Anyway, I thought I found a violation, reported it to the county attorney, the managers were listening in and I got fired. There was no protection for whistleblowers, then, and I was both happy to take the risk and happy to get fired.

The point is, from my perspective a whistleblower should be operating based on his or her own moral convictions and, as Henry David Thoreau pointed out in his seminal Civil Disobedience, should be willing to bear the cost of his or her actions. I can understand that people don’t want to lose a job, but if the protection of a few leads to an anonymous shadow from which to shoot people in the back, then any virtue intended in the protections is lost.

I’m not saying I think Comey or Rosenstein wrote the whistleblower report. I AM saying there is something rotten when Schiff first says he doesn’t know the whistleblower, then he does; will certainly call the whistleblower, then does not. We are not idiots and we are owed the right to know what our elected representatives are doing. And why.

It was painful to see Joe Biden attack an 85-year-old Democrat supporter in Iowa. Biden called him old and fat, and challenged him a push-up contest or IQ test. I can’t do push-ups because of a back surgery, but I’d like a piece of that IQ action. I may not be the sharpest knife in the block, but I would be happy to expose my score to the world simply for the privilege of holding one of these guys to account. Biden may be as smart as he thinks he is, but I have my doubts, and it would be interesting to us all to see.

So with that, we head into Christmas, 2019. What a year it’s been. It appears Trump and China have patched things up between them, but it remains to be seen what the outcome will be for secondary wood products in America. I’m thinking it will be good, with some imports from China getting back on track, and with increased costs of compliance and more accountability for China. The essence of a deal is something for both parties.

For those of us at Wood Industry US, we continue to believe in the ultimate good of mankind, the inherent failings of us all and the chance, if we take it, of making things right on our side of the street. My special thanks to Nicholl Spence at NS Graphic and Web Design, Mike Edwards at Edwards Media and Design, our never-slow-down associate publisher, Stephen King, all our associates in the world of circulation auditing, database management, IT and printing, and, of course, my faithful, loving and ever-attentive wife and partner, Lee Ann.

Merry Christmas from all of us to you and yours.

Stille nacht.

London plane trees: Buttons to boulevards

December 22, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

They are dressed in camo colours: splotches of tan and green and various shades of brown, and they are lined up along the sidewalks as we flash by in the cab. But no, fortunately, they are not armed. They are not even soldiers, although they have the correct upright posture. They are trees: plane trees, or London planes, our companionable urban friends.

I first encountered them in New York City, many years ago. They were not providing much shade in the prairies, and they were a new experience for me. They seem to like the cities, especially the large cosmopolitan ones, steeped in history.

For me, they have all of the evocative associations of travel, culture, intrigue and the infinite possibilities of those discoveries so precious to the young. London, of course, and Paris, Sydney, Shanghai. They are majestic, large and wonderful, with their bark splitting, flaking and pulling apart (exfoliating), revealing the history of their changes in colour: a very light tan nearest the inside and then progressively darker as the flakes age: greens and browns, ochres, and taupes, umbers and other reddish browns and all varieties of gray. The leaves are large and reminiscent of maples, and the name of the tree derives from a Greek word that means ‘broad’, describing them. They are characterized by a nice bole that branches at a convenient, people friendly height and then spreads broadly, providing their welcome shade and leafy environment. The mostly hidden, but telltale fruits are pendant-spiked balls (inflorescences), lychee-sized and coloured, sparsely allocated to the many limbs.

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How wood works

November 25, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree…
— Joyce Kilmer

Actually, a tree is simply an apparatus that facilitates photosynthesis. It puts the little factories, the leaves or the needles, up there out of the way of other things where they can do their job.

The tree itself is the plumbing that supplies those factories with water and its dissolved nutrients, drawing it up out of the ground, and the minimal structure that provides the maximum amount of operation with the minimum amount of material.

Wood is simply a by-product of this obsession of the tree with turning sunlight into oxygen and carbohydrates. This image of plumbing is, I think, quite useful in understanding the nature of the material that we know as wood.

It is a material composed of little tubular cells, attached end-to-end and parallel to each other and oriented along the (mostly vertical) length of the tree and its branches. These little hollow cells are made of cellulose and are bound together with a material known as lignum.

A second type of cell, which is much fewer in number, is oriented at right angles to the primary ones and allow for lateral fluid movement. These are known as rays and are more-or less pronounced, depending on the species, but are often invisible.

Trees grow from their outer perimeter and their tips, adding new layers of material. The active and lively layer is known as the cambium and is just under the protective bark of the tree.

The health of this tissue determines the health of the tree. As the tree grows, the woody tissue converts from active plumbing to the role of more dormant scaffolding structure. It goes from being sapwood (sap being the liquid that moves up and down) to heartwood.

The wood that we value is usually the heart (wood) of the matter. If we intend to use this material for the construction of things, there are a number of important considerations.

One is that wood is, in its natural state, quite wet. It is essentially plumbing, after all.

Once the tree is no longer alive, this moisture will seek equilibrium with its surrounding environment. It dries out. As it dries, the cellulose cells shrink in diameter. Not in length, only in diameter.

To complicate things, the shrinkage is uneven; with approximately twice the shrinkage occurring along the diameter of the tree as occurs along a path radial to the centre of the trunk, although this varies with the species of tree.

This change in the size (and weight) of the material usually needs to be predicted and accommodated by the wood worker. Once the wood’s moisture is in a state of equilibrium with its environment, the change in size stops and the material is stable.

If the drying out occurs too rapidly, the material will likely split. It is usually worth remembering that as the relative humidity of the environment changes with the seasons, the dimensions of the wood will also change. In Canada, this usually means that wood shrinks in the winter and swells in the summer, making doors and drawers stick or loosen and unsecured panels warp.

If solid wood isn’t allowed to change its dimensions, it may split (or burst things) instead. The splitting that occurs during drying is a vulnerability that wood retains.

In addition to the stresses of drying, this splitting can occur through other means. When we split wood for the fireplace we soon learn that wood only splits along its (original) length. The little plumbing tubes are driven apart.

To deform the cells across their circumference requires a completely different magnitude of effort. We use this characteristic as an essential component of our strategy when we work wood.

A different type of consideration is that trees grow the most in the spring, when they are fresh from their winter repose. Later, in the summer, the growth slows down and changes in character.

The early (spring) wood is usually lighter in colour and thicker in volume. The later (summer) wood is darker and occupies less space.

This contrast between the early and late wood provides a record of the age of the tree and the wood with a visual differentiation that gives it what we call figure. This varies hugely between wood species, with pine, for instance, having little visible figure, with ash having a great deal.

Color variation and the range of less usual structures of the cells contribute to this visual distinctiveness. It is also worth noting that the dimensions of the wood that is available will correspond to their source, the trunks of trees.

Natural, un-jointed, solid wood in sheets four-feet by eight feet, for instance, is not feasible. This is information that is very important to those of use who design for the use of wood.

What I’ve written here is a highly simplified description of a much more complex topic. Even so, I’m often surprised by how it is often not taken into consideration.

Paul Epp is professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair if its Industrial Design department.

Taking shortcuts

October 21, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

When we set out for a destination, and we know our terrain well enough, we may be lucky enough to be able to avail ourselves of a shortcut. There is something very charming and satisfying about this prospect: it’s a bit like a secret and we may even want to keep it that way. In my neighbourhood, I know the back lanes and it gives me a certain pleasure to be able to both leave and return by the back routes, unlike the uninitiated. It is also efficient. We attain our objective with less effort, and more quickly when we use our shortcuts.

When we designers talk about design, we are likely to describe a design process. Sometimes we will even put that into capital letter: DESIGN PROCESS, to underscore its importance. There are almost as many different descriptions of this procedure as there are designers, but we have a common ground. We all move through a series of phases, usually beginning with an exploration, which leads to an understanding and a definition of intent. Ideas are sought, evaluated, developed, prototyped and so on. Decisions get made. And this all will result in some kind of resolution in a communicable form.

The mind expands, then contracts

If we think about this process long enough, we will recognize that there is a pattern of cyclical expansions and contractions. We open our minds, expanding them to embrace as wide a range of possibilities as possible. And then we make decisions, contracting our options as we select the best results. Each set of decisions can set off another round of searching for opportunities, within the newly defined constraints. One tidy description of this is the double-diamond, with the diamond shapes suggesting both the expansion and contraction that we experience as we move through our exercise.

Another level of understanding about what we are doing is that we are shifting, sequentially, from left-brain to right-brain activities. We do one (defining/left) and then we do the opposite (exploring/right). And so we proceed.

An even deeper level of understanding will show us that we may also deviate from this pre-determined formula and use shortcuts. I will use the definition of intuition to describe what I mean by this: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Sometimes when we design, we seem to jump ahead and arrive at a tidy conclusion, without all of the intermediate steps. It’s easiest to describe this as occurring through intuition.

It just feels right

It can feel a bit like magic. It’s as if we received some help from an unseen source. We may even choose not to talk about it, as though we cheated, or were caught out as lazy. But it can also feel very satisfying, just as it does in knowing where the shortcut is.

Culturally, we may have some misgivings about what occurs subconsciously. We tend to privilege that which occurs consciously and rationally. But we also know that what is unseen can also be powerful. Politicians are prone to describe their de-cisions, when the chips are down, as going with their gut feelings. However unattractive the description, we know what they mean. They are trusting their feelings.

I think that it might not be quite as mysterious as it sounds. We prepare our subconscious to both look for and to recognize useful things. We might call this spontaneous activity a form of pattern recognition. When what we are looking for matches up with what we have found, when the shapes correspond, we have a sense of immediate arrival.

I doubt that we are born with much intuition. Rather, I think that it is more likely to be the result of a significant amount of self training. We may not know we are doing it, but if we are interested enough in something, and pay enough attention to it and built up a large enough lexicon (getting to know the terrain), we are more likely to have what is called intuition.

There is danger here, though. All departures from the rational ought to make us a bit nervous. When we leave the well-known path for the scramble through the bushes, we may end up being unpleasantly surprised.

But in design, I think we all tend to take shortcuts when we can. We may not admit it, but we do. And so we should. If we’ve done our work, by paying attention, we’ve earned this option, and it can be very efficient and very satisfying.

Paul Epp is an emeritus professor at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.

Defamation works

October 21, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I assume you agree, since by now the majority of businesses we have surveyed report that, if you are like them, a disgruntled employee, a competitor or an unhappy customer has taken to the internet to damage your reputation.

Most reports agree, things are about to get much worse. We are at the dawn of a new “technology” called deep-faking. In a nutshell, deep-faking is taking a series of images or a video of a person, digitizing that person’s facial characteristics and expressions, and then putting that “person” on another body and in circumstances that are unlimited. You can research this phenomenon on the internet by searching for Deep Fake Video Production, or you can view this seven-minute, very tame discussion on Ted Talks.

In essence, all an ill-wisher needs to do is hire a production company to create the video, and he or she can have you dancing naked in the moonlight in downtown Hamburg in winter. Or worse.

The reason we can be certain that this infection will spread is because defamation works. It always has. Throughout history, it has been classified as gossip, chinwag, tattletale, slander, libel, character assassination and a multitude of other unsavory names. In the end, the idea is to damage the object of the lie, and it works.

Defamation is inherently a lie. If I can go back to my grad classes in media law, there are four criteria that must be met before a defamation action can be taken: identification, publication, defamation and damages. Those four seem simple on their faces, but they are not. We can talk about what each means another day, but they are important to know. For example, somebody may seek to defame you, give you a different-but-similar name and change the name of your town by one letter, but if the intent (another great word) is to identify you, identification may be accomplished, even though disguised.

Modern politics is a good place to get an understanding of what is coming down the pike. You may have heard former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defend his admittedly false and defamatory accusation that then-candidate Mitt Romney had not filed his tax returns for 10 years. He can do that because he did it on the open Senate floor, and it’s protected. So are House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s accusations against Trump.

This idea of protection against defamation actions extends well into the business world, as well. Don’t get bored, this will be quick. In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court said people that are “public figures” should expect to be targets and must meet a higher standard of evidence than do “normal” people. (In my opinion, just another assertion of two sets of laws.)

The new standard was called Actual Malice, which, according to my old media law professor, Ted Frederiksen, “is not malice, actually. It is knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.”

This is not a distinction without a difference, since such words as malice, public, private, knowing, truth, etc., are each debatable in their own right. What has happened is that public figures, including current and past political, media, commercial and entertainment figures, have been driven to the conclusion that “actual malice” and “public figure” are not new standards; they are new exclusions. As Romney and others discovered, you can bitch all you want, but you can’t get a hearing. As Reid famously responded when confronted with his lie: “Well, he lost, didn’t he?”

This has had the effect of now being “open season” on anybody that can be labeled as a public figure, and, as we saw in the case of Nicholas Sandmann, the kid that got skewered in the press for standing up to a native activist in Washington while Sandman was on a school trip, even a minor from rural Kentucky can suddenly be cast as a public figure and worthy target, if only the media decides to cast him that way.

That means the media can do what it will with anybody’s reputation, thus neutering the very laws against defamation that the media inspired in the first place. As Mark Twain famously noted: “Do not fear the enemy,” Twain said, “for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your honor. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.”

Twain knew what he was talking about. He was a journalist.

Enough of the mainstream of journalism. Now we are faced with a compounded threat on the internet. For example, now we have a much greater task than simply worrying about the identity of the person defamed. We can’t identify the defamer. It used to be that a publisher (the typical defendant in a defamation suit) had an address, a phone, a business license, etc. You could tell who and where he was.

Not so, today. Today the publishers have been able to exempt themselves from liability – another story for another day – and they declare the writer as the publisher. This means the old-style publishers, being protective of their businesses, would review material before putting their names on it. Today, any over-edible-cannabis-eater with a twit account can attack and damage anybody that won’t provide a job, anybody that did provide a job or anybody looking to provide jobs. All they require is a piss-off and 10 minutes. Five if they don’t need spellchecker.

I would be very impressed if our current national politicians could put aside their pie fight for a week or so and take care of some serious business. In my opinion, internet turpitude, fake smiley guys and sociopathic character assassins qualify.