Author: Gnerphk

I am The Gnerphk, writer extraordinaire, opinionated, radical, and extremely humble by nature.

Of Cuckoo Clocks and Harry Lime

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

—Harry Lime, from The Third Man

Harry Lime is one of my absolute favorite movie villains, and this line is the best in the movie.

Graham Greene himself said that, that it was the best line in his movie, and that Orson Welles came up with it himself the night before shooting. Welles later said that Alsatians invented the clock, but if he’d told an audience that, they’d be busy wondering about dogs and miss the point. When Welles said that, he knew quite well that the clock had been invented in Lorraine.

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About the War in Yemen and Iran

This won’t be popular. I can’t help that, but I do want to warn you before you read it, maybe save you some unnecessary rage. Lord knows there’s plenty of cause without this, and I wouldn’t add to it.

This country is doing the absolute right thing about the Houthis in Yemen.

For the benefit of those of you who won’t continue reading anything that isn’t venomously anti-Trump, I’ll add that there’s no particular virtue accruing to Trump over this except that he isn’t royally screwing it up. It’s kind of a no-brainer to any expert on the region. Which I’m not, but I’ve had it explained to me at great length by several people who are. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll try to put their arguments into a more understandable form.

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Instant Invisibility

or, Why Good Titles Are Important

One of my side gigs is working as a slush reader for an online periodical. I read the incoming stories, determine which are worth my time and the primary editor’s, flag any obvious places for improvement, and pass them along. It’s hard work, especially considering the negligible pay, and if you’re not careful it can be soul-deadening. Some of the horrid content that gets submitted could make the skin crawl, and not in a good way.

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History As Shibboleth

Ten years ago, we were collectively bemoaning the phenomenon of people choosing their own ‘facts’ to suit their biases. Today, we’re worried about AI inventing things and leaving us unable to tell the difference.

As an aside, I’d like to point out that none of this is new. As for AI, the present iteration is… well, it’s artificial, but otherwise the term doesn’t really apply.

But more on that later.

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We Hold These Truths

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Beautiful.

Arguably the grandest lie in the history of government.

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The Paradox of Propaganda

Question on a math test:

If you choose a random answer to this question, the probability that you’ll be correct is:
a) 25% b) 66% c) 50% d) 25%

The first option looks good. Four answers, one in four, 25%. Some people stop there and move on. But they’re wrong. Why? There are two answers that have 25%, and random choice gives that even odds — 50%. So obviously the correct answer is c… except if it is, the odds are back to 25% again.

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On Chekhov’s Gun

I’m envisioning a stage play, where there’s a gun over the mantel that just sits there the whole time. There’s a murder, but the weapon used was something else, a revolver as it happens, and the rifle over the mantel never even gets mentioned by the detective. The actors all stare at it at important moments, doubtless contemplating its essential gun-ness and wondering if it might perchance be loaded after all.

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