Simply Write

May 19, 2010 by Sanjay.

I should write more simply. Smaller words. Shorter sentences. Fewer ideas jostling each other into incoherence. Most days I convince myself that my self-defeating tendency to complicate matters is a mere side-effect of my techie education; once over the 10,000 hour hump of writing experience, simplicity shall flow from my keyboard like twisters from Arjun Basu’s smartphone. Which is by way of introducing an exercise I recently underwent: writing a “how to” for a native Spanish speaker with very little English. This is how that came about.

With the encouragement of a local pilot friend, I recently signed up with a volunteer organization called Angel Flight (AF). AF offers private pilots a chance to fly for a reason: helping folks that need healthcare-related transportation. The focus is not on acutely sick people; they are better transported by medical professionals. AF pilots typically fly patients (and family members) who need to get from and to a medical facility. Sometimes it is for treatment. It could also be for a simple exam. In all cases, the appointment is understood to be non-time-sensitive. A volunteer-flown small plane trip makes the most sense if the passenger cannot arrange, afford or bear a long road trip. To ensure that pilots don’t get too mission-focused and inadvertently disregard safety, passengers are asked to have an alternate mode of transportation in case the volunteer has to cancel the trip. About one in three planned trips are actually cancelled or rescheduled.

I figured my first AF mission needed to be bone simple. So I signed up to transport a lady – I’ll call her AC - from the Central Valley town of Madera,  CA, to my home base of Palo Alto. AC was visiting her infant daughter at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital where she had had renal surgery. AC has no health issues. She could reach the hospital just about any time, we were under no time pressure. And Madera is a mere 115 miles (185 km) away, less than an hour’s flight. What could be simpler, right? Well, after signing up for the mission, I learned that AC spoke no English! The only Spanish I know is “no habla Español”! Houston, we have a problem.

Since this was AC’s first ride in a small plane and her first Angel Flight, I felt we needed to go over the many, many small details in preparation. My AF mentor had helpfully armed me with a pre-trip letter he sends each passenger. A phone call to AC verified that her only available interpreter was a family member with very rudimentary English. Clearly, my mentor’s letter was too sophisticated and culturally-encoded for a non-American non-Anglophone. So I rewrote it entirely. As simply as I could.

I then asked a friend – a Mexico-born housepainter - to discuss it with AC en Español. They spent about 30 minutes on the phone painstakingly dissecting each item. At least partly as a result of that conversation, AC and I had no expectation management issues on our trip. Though she seemed preoccupied much of the time, she seemed quite comfortable. I got her to her child. All was well.

Below is my letter to AC (with identifying details removed). I make no representations as to optimality in content or tone. I post it for three reasons. First, as a reminder (to myself) to write simply. And second, to see if readers can identify additional simplifications. Money left on the table, as it were. And finally, for those who have only flown on commercial carriers, some of the details might provide a flavor of recreational flight.

AC,

I look forward to flying you on your next Angel Flight trip. I thought you’d like to know a few things before your trip:

1. About the trip
Date: May 17, 2010
Pick-up: 3 pm

Passengers: 1 (you)
Weight: 185 lbs (including people, baggage and medical equipment)
From: Terminal building, Madera Municipal Airport, 4020 Aviation Drive, Madera, CA 93637
To: Palo Alto Airport (I will call your taxi when we get there.)
Travel time: About 1 hour

2. About me
Name: Sanjay Saigal
Profession: Computer (IT) consultant
Phone: XXX XXX XXXX
Email: xx@yy.com

3. About the plane
Type: Cirrus SR-20 (4 seats, single engine)
Color: White with green stripes
Registration: N903CD

4. Things to keep in mind (especially if you are new to small planes)

a. Unlike airlines, private flying times are just estimates. If there’s a headwind, a two hour trip could take half an hour more. We could spend extra time going around bad weather. Sometimes we might even arrive earlier than expected. It’s normal.

b. Since we will fly closer to the ground, you might feel more motion than you’re used to. The plane is engineered to bear many times the load the worst turbulence puts on it. Bumpy flights aren’t fun, but they’re safe. (If you start feeling sick, let me know and we’ll try to get to smoother air. I also keep sick bags in the plane!)

c. If you feel uncomfortable before or during the flight, tell me. We can delay our take-off. If we’re in the air and you feel not so great, we can quickly land at a nearby airport. You’ll be surprised how many small airports there are around here.

d. We fly with the help of air traffic control, just like big planes. That means that sometimes I will be busy on the radio. Most other times, I’ll be free to talk. If you have a question or want to tell me something, go right ahead. If I can’t talk right then, I’ll let you know.

e. I’m not getting paid to make this trip. I do it because I love to fly and because I enjoy helping people. Above all, I am concerned with our safety and comfort. If the weather is bad, if the plane isn’t in tip top condition, or if I am not at my best, I will cancel our flight. Of course, I will give you as much advance notice as possible. But if your trip is absolutely essential, make sure you have another way to get to your destination.

f. Even if it’s warm, carry an extra jacket. It will get cooler as we climb. If it’s cold, dress in layers. It could be warmer if we climb through clouds and the sun shines into the cockpit. Weather can be quite a bit different as little as 50 miles away from where you sit. That takes only 20 minutes in a plane!

5. What I expect from you

a. Please be at the pick-up point listed above on time. Call my cell if your plan changes, as far in advance as possible. I cannot get phone calls in the air. So leave a voice-mail message if I don’t pick up the phone.

b. Even though the plane may have extra seats, I am not prepared to carry more people or stuff than listed above. If you expect to have more, call me at least the day before so we can try to work it out.

c. Angel Flight West asks all passengers to sign a waiver before we fly. This form is legal protection for the organization and my family. I will bring a copy for you to sign.

d. I’d like to take a picture for Angel Flight’s pilot recruitment work and for my own records. I hope you’ll be ok with that.

I look forward to meeting you soon, and taking you comfortably and safely to your destination. If you have any questions before then, do let me know.

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Zapping up the Ulti Lingo*

May 20, 2009 by Sanjay.

Sifting through old papers, I ended up riffling through my thesis. Back to front. Perhaps I wanted to know how the story ended. Or perhaps in its opacity - 18 years down the road - it seems to be written in a truly foreign language, like Persian. Whatever the reason, when further paper shuffling - avoiding work is an avocation - yielded the following poem by Nissim Ezekiel, I had to laugh. It was just too appropriate to the laboriousness of my own forays in writing. (I am on week 3 stuck in a supposedly straightforward technical report…)

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Some people are not having manners
this I am always observing
For example the other day I find
I am needing Soap
for ordinary washing myself purposes
So I am going to one small shop
nearby in my lane and I am asking
for well-known brand soapThe shopman he’s giving me soap
but I am finding it defective version
So I am saying very politely –
though in Hindi I’m saying it,
and my Hindi is not so good as my English
Please to excuse me
but this is defective version of well-known brand soap
That shopman is saying
and very rudely he is saying it
What is wrong with soap?

Still I am keeping my temper
and repeating very smilingly
Please to note this defect in Soap
and still he is denying the truth
So I am getting very angry that time and with loud voice I am saying
YOU ARE BLIND OR WHAT?

Now he is shouting
you are calling me blind or what?
Come outside and I will show you

Then I am shouting
What you will show me
Which I haven’t got already?
It is a vulgar thing to say
But I am saying it.

Now small crowd is collecting
and the shopman is much bigger than me,
and I am not caring so much
for small defect in well-known brand soap
So I am saying
Alright OK Alright OK
this time I will take
but not next time

Nissim Ezekiel
from: Very Indian Poems in Indian English

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* The post title is the headline of a September 1988 article in India Today about college slang. Ulti, here a contraction of ultimate, carries a double meaning. The identically spelled Hindi word means upside down.

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Seeing the Light

February 16, 2009 by Sanjay.

My non-agenda for this blog, I told myself, was to write about whatever interested me. And, like most people, I have convinced myself of my impressively wide range of interests. Imagine my surprise then, when I looked at the “word cloud” generated by the ultra-cool web site Wordle. Click on it to see the full-size picture:

I’m political! Who knew!!

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Praising Famous Men

April 26, 2008 by Sanjay.

My readers (“Charlie Babbit made a joke!”) are familiar with my interest in the line between communication and miscommunication. (Click on those words in the tag cloud on the left to view related posts.) Recently, this interest has collided with another newly-developed fixation: my theory that creativity impels the spirit to liberality. Suggestions from right-wing friends have sent me borrowing into what passes for conservative philosophizing on the American scene. The single star on this otherwise dreary horizon is the late William F. Buckley Jr.

Without digressing into an enjoyable recitation of WFB’s many qualities as a conservative stylist, his greatest gift was a witty facility with language. Dick Cavett wrote of WFB’s first appearance on his television talk show:

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… I … find myself in the daunting world of hosting a talk show. I had seen a lot of Buckley on his own show — a formidable presence on the screen — and there he was on my next week’s guest list.

Because it was Buckley, I was nervous in a way I don’t think I ever was before or since. If you’d asked me what exactly I was nervous about, I doubt that I could have defined it.

Then I found out.

Conversation seemed to be moving along nicely when, in reference to something he had just brought up, I said, “I’m not really familiar with that.” Back came, “You don’t seem to be familiar with anything.”

Wham!

I think I nearly lost consciousness. It was a rotten thing to say to a beginner.

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The exchange keys into WFB’s ability to torque a vapid and entirely common packet of mainstream communication (“I’m not really familiar with that”) into a Wildean stab of ridicule. WFB applied this ability to deconstruct received wisdom to commenting on American politics through the second half of the 20th century. Though he was, in a sense, a counter-example to my creative => liberal theory, his leverage was limited by the un-American exoticness of his expression. Cavett relates that the (presumably Liberal) college professor who alerted him to WFB’s brilliance went on to say that “If he had a little more of the common touch, he’d be a truly dangerous man.” The professor was surely referring to more than just WFB’s use of language — WFB was a notorious name-dropper comically prone to being impressed by celebrity — but his high-falutin’ speech was likely Exhibit A.

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Life at the Edge of Reason

October 29, 2007 by Sanjay.

In my last note, I mentioned an eruption of anti-lawyer hysteria on the Cirrus Pilots forum. The arrival of the Fox Business Network channel has occasioned another logorrheic conflagration, this one covering the fairness and balance of mainstream American media, the global warming debate, and finally, Atheism and Christianity. What I find most interesting in such contentious online discussion threads (which tend to the complexity of a barroom brawl) is how much talking past each other we do today. It seems that we have neither the patience, nor the respect, to actually debate ideas. It’s much more satisfying to shout.

The problem is not limited to your average Joe Chatter. It seems to have taken on the form of a “best practice” for online interaction, even at high levels. Case in point: the jello-wrestling going on between Jim Fallows and someone called Gabriel Schoenfeld on their respective blogs. Jim Fallows writes for The Atlantic, a liberal monthly, and Gabriel Schoenfeld for the conservative Commentary. Here is how the match has unfolded to this point:

Move 1: Writing on the influence of lobbies in US policy-making, Fallows mentions three instances in which he believes national interests were sacrificed to a lobby’s narrow goals: the Armenian lobby’s manipulation of the Democrats into championing the recent anti-Turkish resolution, the anti-Castro lobby’s influence on the Cuba policy, and the pro-Israel lobby’s “legitimization” of the looming showdown with Iran.

Fallows is obviously critical of the distortional effects of AIPAC, a major pro-Israel lobby. But it’s clear from reading his short piece that his point is about the unintended consequences of the free market/winner takes all model of the American policy-making process.

Response: Quoting only the Fallows’ pro-Israel lobby example, Schoenfeld whips himself into righteous lather over the failure of “disloyal American” (and possible anti-semite) Fallows to acknowledge the terrible harm his own liberal peacenik lobby causes to American interests! While agreeing that monitoring factional forces is legitimate, the central query of Schoenfeld’s post is “why is this game played only one way, with America’s Jews the primary target?“

At no point in his blog post does Schoenfeld even hint at the fact that Fallows’ article was about lobbyist myopia, not a slam on Israeli interests. While some of the comments on the blog chorus Hallelujah!, most of the public commentators attack the tone and the content of Shoenfeld’s blogpost.

Counter: Fallows is (understandably) surprised at the Schoenfeld complaint, and wonders “which is the more plausible interpretation: That the author heard I’d written something objectionable and attacked it without reading it? Or that he did read it — and deliberately left out everything that didn’t fit his case, including through artful cutting of quotes?“

Fallows’ amazement is not hard to appreciate. Obviously, Schoenfeld has completely missed his point, which is not about Jews or Israel. And even if it had been targeted only at AIPAC, the leap to assuming anti-semitic motives is clearly absurd.

Last word: Schoenfeld has since issued a mea culpa saying that “I will cheerfully acknowledge that my conclusion was hasty”. But there’s little cheerful about the admission; rather, the appropriate word is churlish, since the blogpost is titled “The Disloyalty of James Fallows Revisited”. It also again questions Fallows’ motives, asking “why does he cast aspersions of disloyalty on those with whom he disagrees about what constitutes those interests?“

This is where matters stand as I type this. As with the Fox Business Network thread, what interests me most are not the specifics of the argument, but the nature of it. Schoenfeld, a well-known journo, and Fallows, another respected writer, are clearly talking past each other. Schoenfeld clearly made a mistake, reflexively attacking Fallows’ original post because he disagrees with his overall take on US-Israel relations (well-documented elsewhere), and perhaps a host of other issues viewed through the Liberal/Conservative schism in the American conversation. Of the two choices Fallows’ posed, I pick the third: Schoenfeld cannot read past Fallows’ criticism of AIPAC. It isn’t that he hasn’t read the words or that he maliciously filtered the part of the argument that didn’t fit his agenda. At a certain psychological, but nonetheless real, level, Schoenfeld just could not grok all of the original post because he was so offended by the anti-AIPAC bits.

The saddest aspect of this incident is that Schoenfeld is a paid, presumably trained, journalist. If a professional cannot be trusted to communicate, what hope is there for politicians or, for that matter, for us normal people?

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Lying Liars and the Lies we Tell

July 25, 2007 by Sanjay.

In Solaris, his 1961 meditation disguised in a sci-fi setting, the polymathic Stanislaw Lem carefully laid out the case for the impossibility of communication. In a 2002 interview, Lem summarized his central conceit:

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Science fiction almost always assumed the aliens we meet play some kind of game with us the rules of which we sooner or later may understand (in most cases the “game” was the strategy of warfare). However I wanted to cut all threads leading to the personification of the Creature, i.e. the Solarian Ocean, so that the contact could not follow the human, interpersonal pattern - although it did take place in some strange manner. The method I used in the novel to demonstrate this was the particular outcome of the interest of people, who for over one hundred years have been studying the planet Solaris and the ocean covering its surface.

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I was reminded of Lem’s masterwork while navigating the latest outbreak of complaining about the US legal system on my favorite aviation-related Internet forum. One of the forum’s more balanced participants, not a reflexive lawyer-basher, wrote that “the current system … has an inherent dishonesty built into it.” Indeed.

Formalized lying is often explained as a feature (as opposed to a bug) of the adversarial model of justice-seeking now ubiquitous worldwide. However, every so often, we are reminded that the world is not quite our suburban back-yard, as in this 2003 report from the New York Times:

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It is no surprise that East Timorese believe in human rights and justice, but they apply these principles in their own way.

When United Nations experts came to help found a court system in the newborn nation three years ago, they brought with them an adversarial model in which a verdict emerges from opposing arguments.

It was a strange process, said an American lawyer who took part in the training. Culturally, she said, East Timorese tend to admit the crimes they have committed. To create a Western-style court system, she said, it was necessary to teach defendants to lie.

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Customary lying is hardly the exclusive province of the legal system. It pervades the activity of commerce, and I daresay, our private lives. In the commercial setting, it infects (but is not limited to) the otherwise perfectly honorable profession of Marketing. In private, lying undergirds our self-justification in relationship. (We’ve come a long way from the ghutti of George Washington and the Cherry Tree, baby!)

As consumers, we’re adept at applying filters to slice through the layers of misdirection that companies use to limn otherwise ordinary wares. As humans, especially as psychology-aware post-modern ironistas, we routinely deconstruct, diagnose and reflect the “pathologies” through which colleagues, friends and family relate to us. But does all this lying (to use the word in a broadly non-pejorative sense) not make true communication impossible? In that sense, are we not all Kris Kelvins para-dropped onto a strange land?

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The Point of Power

May 12, 2006 by Sanjay.

Anyone that regularly attends professional conferences is likely familiar with Peter Norvig’s Gettysburg Address on PowerPoint, a satirical spoof illustrating the ridiculous level of simplification that PowerPoint straitjackets presentations into.  Following an early-morning conversation with my wife about her new project management responsibilities, I got to thinking about the unnatural power of simplification. She who simplifies, persuades. She who persuades, sets the agenda. She who sets the agenda, runs the show. PowerPoint runs the show like nothing else!

Norvig’s page led me to a very thought-provoking New Yorker article on the topic of PowerPoint. Like many New Yorker articles, it’™s an entertaining read. (And like many New Yorker articles, it exposes a flabby middle a la Palo Alto soccer moms in tank tops and capris. Lit-poli magazine writers apparently don’t understand that completeness in the pursuit of illumination is no virtue. Perhaps they get paid by the word… But I digress.)

The “€œPowerPoint problem” has invaded most commercial organizations, especially in terms of how important decisions are made. Most work presentations of any consequence are summations. They justify previously taken decisions. They don’t invite either debate or consensus. A sullen gloom pervades the boardroom… but I have a mortgage to keep, and miles to fly before I sleep.

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Living in the Promised Land

April 20, 2006 by Sanjay.

I learnt today that Amitava, a high school classmate, has gained some repute as a critic and litterateur. And since punditry impels fame, he has a blog, wherein he talks about the playwright David Hare and his love of public speaking. Hare is perhaps most well-known for Blue Room, which starred Nicole Kidman’s bare behind on Broadway in 1998-99.

It amazes me that as that coolly analytical actress was acknowledging her sold out audiences’ fervent, albeit single-handed, applause, down the street in the Booth Theater, Hare was himself “starring” in another one of his plays - Via Dolorosa. (The same year another play, Amy’s View, also had  a successful Broadway run. It was quite the year for Sir Hare! And if polemic turns you on - I mean that in a good way! - check out Hare’s latest, Stuff Happens, currently running in New York.)

Via Dolorosa is a clever, yet empathically humane report of the Arab-Israel conflict. I hesitate to say anything more about it, for two reasons. First, it’s been extensively and more competently critiqued elsewhere. And second, because it is one of those dense monologues that is better experienced than talked about. (Confession: Plus, it’s also been 7 years since I saw it. Unless I cheat by renting the filmed version, I know I have forgetten many important bits.) One of the funnier bits in the play is where Hare says:

“[In England,] people lead shallow lives because they don’t believe in anything anymore. [In Israel,] in a single day I experience events and emotions that would keep a Swede going for a year.”

I thought of Hare’s quip when I spoke this morning with Ron, an Israeli colleague.  After we were done discussing the technical stuff, I asked in my best bedside manner what people around him were saying about last week’s suicide bombing of a falafel restaurant. The bombing was significant in being the first major attack in Tel Aviv after Hamas assumed power of the PA, and because it took place the day the new Kadima coalition was to be sworn in. Ron’s response? “Nothing. People are not talking about it.” Even being used to, as I am, Ron’s phlegmatic affect, I was taken aback and wondered, “Have the Israelis been incorporated into the Borg Collective?”

After more thought I decided that it was just Ron being a Tel Aviv-ian. Tel Aviv is a remarkable city, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about it are its denizens. They’re busy but friendly and surprisingly easygoing, seemingly adjusted to living in interesting times. Entering the opera house for an 8 PM performance (of what turned out to be a somewhat lacklustre but still entertaining Don Carlo) the guard asked me casually if I was carrying a gun! When I stammered back, “ggggun? nnooo! no gun!”, he let me carry on without another glance. A far cry from the TSA!

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