Superman had gone bad, they said. The gold heart of the man of steel had, as it were, tarnished and rusted beyond recognition. Gone were the good old days of elderly people being saved from oncoming busses and young planets being saved from oncoming asteroids, replaced by a Super-whirlwind of malicious violence. Countless bicycles were hopelessly heat-rayed in two. Ocean travel was reduced to ships randomly floating on the currents, embedded in their own super-chill-breath icebergs. Monuments and works of art, no matter how solidly built, ended up invariably toppled or twisted. Dinners around the world suffered from having messy super-speed bites taken out of the middle of every dish before getting to the table.
Not all hope was lost. The Kryptonite sales and manufacturing sectors were booming, and despite the impossibility of their existence, experts in Kryptonian psychology were doing very well for themselves going on Superman-survival lecture tours. And, of course, there was Niles Underbottom.
Niles, to put it bluntly, almost but not quite epitomized the term 'pathetic'. His spine was suitable for little more than making slime molds look like stiff-backed vertebrates, his smile was reminiscent of stale tuna dip, and the liveliest form of entertainment he could wrap his imagination around was blinking ten times per second, as opposed to his usual five times per second. While he did, of course, have redeeming qualities, the best one that anyone who knew him well could name was that he never left the toilet seat up.
Niles was not, by any stretch of the imagination, Superman's only target for malicious acts. He was, however, among the former superhero's favorites. It made the differences between Superman and the humans of Earth so pleasantly and abundantly clear, if nothing else. One of those differences, I suspect he reflected as he was once again stumbling away from the Man of Stee...er... Rust, was that Superman wouldn't have put up with the kind of treatment that...
But Niles' rare bouts of potential reflection were, inevitably, cut short by some nasty Super-act or another. As he went hurtling through the air, he may have started to reflect on that very fact, but probably cut himself short due to a rapidly evolving superstition concerning the correlation of "Niles Thinking" and "Bad Things Happening." Perhaps it was wise, because he narrowly missed a demonstration of the irregidity of his spine when compared to a brick wall, and only crashed through a plate glass window instead.
Apologizing profusely to everyone around, Niles staggered to his feet and, after more than doubling the damage he'd already done to the shop, managed to remain upright.
It must be said, in Niles' defense, that one item in the shop had very legitimately caught his attention. In those bad days, everyone was familiar with a few points of hope. The name 'Lex Luthor', for example, a bright beacon in the Super-night. The usually-green shine of Kryptonite, for another. And, of course, the fusion of the two: The Kryptonite-powered super suit that Lex was developing in his ongoing battle to stem the worst of the Super-problems. Anyone would have staggered a bit had they, like Niles, seen Lex's suit there before them.
Niles had, most likely, had it with being tormented by Superman. He'd also known there wasn't a thing he could do about it because even if he weren't, as he knew all too well, painfully pathetic, he was still only human. Even if he got up the nerve to, ever so politely ask Superman not to be quite so mean, he couldn't put any weight behind the request... at least, none that'd be noticed.
Niles hadn't had Lex's Super Suit, though, and as he pulled the outfit on, I bet he permitted himself the luxury of a little reflection. Just enough to think about how Lex had made the suit to practically operate on its own. Something reminiscent of stale tuna dip spread slowly across his face. All he had to do was whatever the suit made him do, and that couldn't be any harder than doing whatever Superman had made him do. Like flying across the street, with the greatest of ease, into a window.
Later that day, while gleefully terrorizing some senior citizens, a look of Super-suprise spread across Superman's face when he saw Niles headed his way. It might have been because Niles was sauntering, which would strike most people as only a little less strange than a disco-dancing tarantula. It might have been because Niles wasn't stumbling /away/, which was the only direction he ever moved, as far as Superman was concerned. It might have been something else.
Undaunted by Superman's unusual expression, Niles continued to saunter up. He greeted Superman casually, explained in no uncertain terms that he was not going to put up with being bullied anymore, then jabbed a finger into the legendary red-and-yellow S to make it clear to whom he was speaking.
Naturally, Superman toppled over like a board.
The former Man of Steel was, to put it mildly, unaccustomed to such treatment, and quickly got to his feet with the look of someone who's about to transition from mild Super-bullying to more serious Super-malice. A number of the reporters who recklessly trailed Superman and his 'antics' commented rather gleefully on this point. While, that day, their thirst for seeing an obviously superior opponent thoroughly trounce an inferior patsy was not satisfied, they did capture some impressive footage of Superman taking a lot more than he dished out, not to mention some never-before-seen Super facial expressions.
The details of the fight really aren't important to anyone who doesn't collect comic books, but the results were clear. Superman was given the two classic choice of 'shape up' or 'ship out', and Niles didn't relent until it was clear that "None of the above" wasn't one of the options.
Truth be told, Superman did manage to choose something not on Niles' list, because while he's not a Super-genius, he's still a pretty darn clever Kryptonian, and he stuck around without doing the shaping up he'd claimed was his plan. It had, of course, become clear that with Lex's suit, Niles was more than a match for Superman, but everyone also knew that nobody, unaided, could really even contemplate taking on the former superhero. So, with some plotting and some scheming, Superman saw to it that somehow (nobody ever figured out how, what with the human-impregnable and kryptonite-laced security system), one night, a very convincing fake suit was substituted for the one Niles had worn.
It was sad. Niles didn't even realize the swap had been made until some tipped-off reporters stormed the now well-known door of the man who could keep Superman at bay. With scientists in tow, they revealed that the tip was right: Niles was now the proud owner of a rather convincingly painted foam rubber and ceramic suit.
These days, things are back to normal. That brief span when Niles kept the peace still linger on fondly in people's memory, but the world has become accustomed to investing in Kryptonite doorknobs and lead-lined underwear, and that's the best they can do against the ongoing level of Super-meyhem. Without the likes of the suit, there's really nothing more they can do.
Of course, the nastiest piece of Super-mischief is the thing I never told anyone. They all still wonder how I swapped out the suits, so they'll never realize that all I had to do was call the media and tell the truth of the matter. Of course, if somehow they do figure out that's all I did, I really will have to ship out, because man oh man, if they realize that Niles Underbottom, of all people, didn't need anything special to whup me...
10.18.2006
To quort or not to quort?
Time for a new verb: quort.
You know that random person walking down the street? The one that you don't have an idea whether they like the same foods as you do? You shouldn't quort their judgement about what foods you'd like. Your mother, on the other hand... well, you probably should quort her judgement about what you'll like (or, at least, what you'll like if your preferences haven't changed since you were ten), even if you may not quort that she'll actually give you things you like. If the stuff you like isn't healthy, and she's big into healthy food, you should quort that she'll give you things you don't like. If you like healthy stuff and so does she (and you have the same idea of what healthy actually is), you'd quort that she'll give you things that you like. If she cooks by the method of "pick a recipe at random", then unless you like everything, you shouldn't quort that she'll make something you like, nor should you quort that she'll make something you don't like.
But enough about food. At least until lunchtime rolls around. I quort that when I push the power button on a computer (that's plugged in) something will happen. I quort that if a computer is running a Microsoft operating system, I will have to reboot it sooner rather than later. I quort that Apple products will generally be on the expensive side. I quort that when I drop a bowling ball on my foot, it will hurt, but I do not quort that anything dropped on my foot will hurt. Indeed, I quort that when I drop a pillow on my foot, it will not hurt.
Now, to get personal again. If someone consistently lies to me, I do not quort that they will tell me the truth, and I do quort that what they tell me won't be true. If someone randomly lies to me, I neither quort that they'll tell me the truth or that they'll lie to me. If someone consistently avoids lies, I'd quort that they'll tell me the truth, and I'd quort that they wouldn't lie to me. As such, if I were to say that I quorted someone, it would be wise to ask "how so?", both because you might have thought I said I had courted them, and because you wouldn't know if I quorted that they would remember my birthday or if I quorted that they would steal anything that wasn't bolted down.
Time for a first attempt at a definition.
To quort that X will Y: To believe that one understands X well enough to, with reasonable accuracy, predict that X will do Y.
Or, more generally (and less usefully)
To quort: To believe that one understands some situation enough to predict how it will evolve with reasonable accuracy, with respect to some particular aspect.
Expressing that one quorts, without (contextually or explicitly) specifying the situation and the aspect, isn't very informative. "I don't quort Joe" would, in most cases, be false, because just about everyone does understand other people enough to accurately predict that they'll breathe air, and I think it's safe to say most people believe they have this basic understanding. So, in most cases, "I quort [insert identifier here]" is automatically true: if nothing else, you believe you understand something enough to predict that it can be identified the way you did. A spade, as it were, will tend to be a spade. Beyond that basic level, there's the whole breathing thing: almost everyone quorts almost everyone else, because there's some particular aspect (breathing) which is quite predictable.
To quort a particular aspect of a person's or object's behavior, however, is appropriate to the verb. If someone asks you if you and your significant other want to come over for dinner that night, barring unknown schedule conflicts, chances are good that you quort that your SO would want to (or not want to, as appropriate).
So, as with communication in general, I hope that you now quort that what I'm talking about is the same thing you're thinking of as quort.
You know that random person walking down the street? The one that you don't have an idea whether they like the same foods as you do? You shouldn't quort their judgement about what foods you'd like. Your mother, on the other hand... well, you probably should quort her judgement about what you'll like (or, at least, what you'll like if your preferences haven't changed since you were ten), even if you may not quort that she'll actually give you things you like. If the stuff you like isn't healthy, and she's big into healthy food, you should quort that she'll give you things you don't like. If you like healthy stuff and so does she (and you have the same idea of what healthy actually is), you'd quort that she'll give you things that you like. If she cooks by the method of "pick a recipe at random", then unless you like everything, you shouldn't quort that she'll make something you like, nor should you quort that she'll make something you don't like.
But enough about food. At least until lunchtime rolls around. I quort that when I push the power button on a computer (that's plugged in) something will happen. I quort that if a computer is running a Microsoft operating system, I will have to reboot it sooner rather than later. I quort that Apple products will generally be on the expensive side. I quort that when I drop a bowling ball on my foot, it will hurt, but I do not quort that anything dropped on my foot will hurt. Indeed, I quort that when I drop a pillow on my foot, it will not hurt.
Now, to get personal again. If someone consistently lies to me, I do not quort that they will tell me the truth, and I do quort that what they tell me won't be true. If someone randomly lies to me, I neither quort that they'll tell me the truth or that they'll lie to me. If someone consistently avoids lies, I'd quort that they'll tell me the truth, and I'd quort that they wouldn't lie to me. As such, if I were to say that I quorted someone, it would be wise to ask "how so?", both because you might have thought I said I had courted them, and because you wouldn't know if I quorted that they would remember my birthday or if I quorted that they would steal anything that wasn't bolted down.
Time for a first attempt at a definition.
To quort that X will Y: To believe that one understands X well enough to, with reasonable accuracy, predict that X will do Y.
Or, more generally (and less usefully)
To quort: To believe that one understands some situation enough to predict how it will evolve with reasonable accuracy, with respect to some particular aspect.
Expressing that one quorts, without (contextually or explicitly) specifying the situation and the aspect, isn't very informative. "I don't quort Joe" would, in most cases, be false, because just about everyone does understand other people enough to accurately predict that they'll breathe air, and I think it's safe to say most people believe they have this basic understanding. So, in most cases, "I quort [insert identifier here]" is automatically true: if nothing else, you believe you understand something enough to predict that it can be identified the way you did. A spade, as it were, will tend to be a spade. Beyond that basic level, there's the whole breathing thing: almost everyone quorts almost everyone else, because there's some particular aspect (breathing) which is quite predictable.
To quort a particular aspect of a person's or object's behavior, however, is appropriate to the verb. If someone asks you if you and your significant other want to come over for dinner that night, barring unknown schedule conflicts, chances are good that you quort that your SO would want to (or not want to, as appropriate).
So, as with communication in general, I hope that you now quort that what I'm talking about is the same thing you're thinking of as quort.
10.17.2006
A pair of bulls
Two bulls once met across a fence.
The first bull said to the second "Where are you from?", to which the second replied "Outside your fence. How about you?"
The first bull answered "Oh, I also came from outside the fence, but I found life to be better here. Indeed, I tried living within many different fences, but they all left me hungry. The farmers would give me shredded paper, or tofu, or elbow macaroni, or ground up cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but none of these sated my hunger. Our Farmer, though, he feeds us grain and water and salt. You could join us, if you like."
The second bull looked over the fence at the herd, and nodded. "I can see that you are well fed and healthy. I can see a certain appeal to joining. I must know, though: why didn't you just go out of the other farmers fences and eat the food nature provided you with, though? I've found it to be quite nourishing."
The first bull looked at the second. "I can see that you are healthy as well, and you are lucky indeed. All truly nourishing food comes from Our Farmer, and so you must have been milling around near a place he left food out. He's not unkind, you see, and so doesn't only feed those of us in his fence. It must be scary, though, having no reliable source of food."
"No reliable source of food?" asked the second bull, confused, "I get my food from the same source your Farmer does, from the ground itself. Without the middleman, my source is at least as reliable as yours."
"While, yes, there is some food to be had from the ground," rejoined the first bull, "the food of Our Farmer is better. You see, he's where grains come from, and corn, and apples. You can't get those from the ground. I'll be the first to admit you are doing very well on your ground-food diet, but there are two big problems. One is that the ground can't supply the most important things, so you'll never be completely nourished, and the other is that you can't rely on the ground to only give you good food, so you'll end up eating bad things."
"That's what I have a sense of smell and of taste for," said the second bull, "and a memory. I can figure out which things from the ground are good and which are bad. Grains, for instance. I found some, growing in the ground, far from here, and I can tell they're good food. Your Farmer doesn't have the monopoly on grains. You certainly look like you're fed on grains, but your Farmer's got to get them somewhere, and it's the ground."
"Of course, your senses are good to have, but they're not enough," pointed out the first bull. "Even if grains did grow in the ground... which they don't... your senses weren't enough to tell that they're good. That's why it's important to be in Our Farmer's field. He knows what's good for us, even when our senses don't. He tells us what is good to eat and what is bad, and he gives us the good things to eat. Simple as that. All we have to do is digest them... which isn't always easy..."
"Well yes, naturally it's not easy." interjected the second bull, "If it didn't take any effort to digest the food, it would all slide out the other end with no benefit gained..."
"But we aren't reduced to relying on our senses. Granted, you can use your senses to tell that we've got something good going on here, that's how I decided to join the herd. I could tell that there was something special about Our Farmer's food..."
"But there's nothing special about your Farmer's food!" objected the second bull. "There's something special about your food, but not because it comes from your Farmer. If your Farmer were replaced by a mechanical bull, grains and corn and apples would still be good food, it would still come from the ground, and it would still be the right food for the likes of you and me. The food, yes, that's special, but getting all worked up about it being tied to your Farmer is not only unnecessary, but could lead you to make mistakes. You'd be better off learning, yourself, how to tell good food from bad and how to find the good food where it grows in the ground."
"But, you see, we already can tell good food from bad: the food Our Farmer gives us is good, and anything else is at risk of being bad. And we already can find the good food where it comes from: it comes from Our Farmer."
"You can't see that your Farmer is a fallible middleman between the source of proper food and yourself, you don't believe that complete nutrition can be derived from the actual source of all nutrition, and you want me to join you?" queried the second bull.
"I can't see why you wouldn't want to. I see that you can tell that our food is good. We have a nice big herd, too. You don't seem to be in a herd. Aren't you lonely? If you had calves, would you want them to be lonely and underfed?"
"Until you realize that there are more important, more fundamental things than your Farmer and are able to discern them with your own eyes, I cannot be a member of your herd. If I had calves, it would be wrong to raise them among closed eyes, even if they were well fed and never lonely, for it would be far too easy for them to never learn to open their own eyes, thinking they have food and friends and that truth is only of secondary importance."
"But," protested the first bull, "Having Our Farmer's food and being in the fence really is what matters..."
"Just so," lamented the second bull, "just so."
The first bull said to the second "Where are you from?", to which the second replied "Outside your fence. How about you?"
The first bull answered "Oh, I also came from outside the fence, but I found life to be better here. Indeed, I tried living within many different fences, but they all left me hungry. The farmers would give me shredded paper, or tofu, or elbow macaroni, or ground up cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but none of these sated my hunger. Our Farmer, though, he feeds us grain and water and salt. You could join us, if you like."
The second bull looked over the fence at the herd, and nodded. "I can see that you are well fed and healthy. I can see a certain appeal to joining. I must know, though: why didn't you just go out of the other farmers fences and eat the food nature provided you with, though? I've found it to be quite nourishing."
The first bull looked at the second. "I can see that you are healthy as well, and you are lucky indeed. All truly nourishing food comes from Our Farmer, and so you must have been milling around near a place he left food out. He's not unkind, you see, and so doesn't only feed those of us in his fence. It must be scary, though, having no reliable source of food."
"No reliable source of food?" asked the second bull, confused, "I get my food from the same source your Farmer does, from the ground itself. Without the middleman, my source is at least as reliable as yours."
"While, yes, there is some food to be had from the ground," rejoined the first bull, "the food of Our Farmer is better. You see, he's where grains come from, and corn, and apples. You can't get those from the ground. I'll be the first to admit you are doing very well on your ground-food diet, but there are two big problems. One is that the ground can't supply the most important things, so you'll never be completely nourished, and the other is that you can't rely on the ground to only give you good food, so you'll end up eating bad things."
"That's what I have a sense of smell and of taste for," said the second bull, "and a memory. I can figure out which things from the ground are good and which are bad. Grains, for instance. I found some, growing in the ground, far from here, and I can tell they're good food. Your Farmer doesn't have the monopoly on grains. You certainly look like you're fed on grains, but your Farmer's got to get them somewhere, and it's the ground."
"Of course, your senses are good to have, but they're not enough," pointed out the first bull. "Even if grains did grow in the ground... which they don't... your senses weren't enough to tell that they're good. That's why it's important to be in Our Farmer's field. He knows what's good for us, even when our senses don't. He tells us what is good to eat and what is bad, and he gives us the good things to eat. Simple as that. All we have to do is digest them... which isn't always easy..."
"Well yes, naturally it's not easy." interjected the second bull, "If it didn't take any effort to digest the food, it would all slide out the other end with no benefit gained..."
"But we aren't reduced to relying on our senses. Granted, you can use your senses to tell that we've got something good going on here, that's how I decided to join the herd. I could tell that there was something special about Our Farmer's food..."
"But there's nothing special about your Farmer's food!" objected the second bull. "There's something special about your food, but not because it comes from your Farmer. If your Farmer were replaced by a mechanical bull, grains and corn and apples would still be good food, it would still come from the ground, and it would still be the right food for the likes of you and me. The food, yes, that's special, but getting all worked up about it being tied to your Farmer is not only unnecessary, but could lead you to make mistakes. You'd be better off learning, yourself, how to tell good food from bad and how to find the good food where it grows in the ground."
"But, you see, we already can tell good food from bad: the food Our Farmer gives us is good, and anything else is at risk of being bad. And we already can find the good food where it comes from: it comes from Our Farmer."
"You can't see that your Farmer is a fallible middleman between the source of proper food and yourself, you don't believe that complete nutrition can be derived from the actual source of all nutrition, and you want me to join you?" queried the second bull.
"I can't see why you wouldn't want to. I see that you can tell that our food is good. We have a nice big herd, too. You don't seem to be in a herd. Aren't you lonely? If you had calves, would you want them to be lonely and underfed?"
"Until you realize that there are more important, more fundamental things than your Farmer and are able to discern them with your own eyes, I cannot be a member of your herd. If I had calves, it would be wrong to raise them among closed eyes, even if they were well fed and never lonely, for it would be far too easy for them to never learn to open their own eyes, thinking they have food and friends and that truth is only of secondary importance."
"But," protested the first bull, "Having Our Farmer's food and being in the fence really is what matters..."
"Just so," lamented the second bull, "just so."
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