Prose and Kaa

  by  wwarby 

A few days ago, a friend—actually, two separate friends who don’t know each other—sent me links to two different articles on how the human body reacts when exposed to the vacuum of space without the benefit of a space suit.

I have strange friends. Or, reworded: I have friends who know me, perhaps, all too well.

So I read these two articles and filed them away for future reference in case I might need to know for some future writing project.

Apparently, something about the articles got into my head and stuck there. And swirled around for several days.

Then, last night, my brain supplied me with a truly lovely dream. Really.

I was on a space station with a bunch of people. Some of them are co-workers of mine, some are friends, some are writer-friends, others were “extras”. What gamers would call NPCs.

And this space station—or perhaps it was a space ship a la “Star Gate: Universe”—was traveling along merrily until . . . you guessed it, explosive decompression. Basically a slow leak.

But this is a dream world. So in my dream world, the “slow leak” resulted in me and others being able to stand, sans space suits, in corridors that were open to the vacuum of space as gale-force winds blew past us into the void. Never mind that, were this to actually happen, the air supply on the ship/station would be expelled in toto and those of us standing in the corridor would have soon also been attempting to breathe vacuum.

So I watched as, one by one, my friends, co-workers, and fellow writers were blown (not sucked; the articles were clear on that point) into the vacuum.

And, thanks to those articles, my dreaming brain knew precisely what to show me as each of them died. A puff of frozen breath as the lungs forcibly expelled the last breath, then started to draw oxygen out of the blood. The icing over of the mucus membranes: the nose, eyes, and mouth. Saliva boiling on the tongue. The skin turning blue with bruises. The dawning horror as they realized what was happening to them. The unconsciousness in maybe fifteen to twenty seconds. The seizures. And finally, the stillness as the body slowly releases its heat while the heart still continues to beat deoxygenated blood to the starving brain for a while. All in all, not a very pleasant way to die. But at least it’s over quickly.

Sometimes, it really sucks to have both an imagination and a desire for scientific accuracy in one’s science fiction.

At several points during the dream, I woke up to turn over, and then went right back to the dream. During all this death and decompression, the ship was literally breaking apart. But at one point, me and some friends went to the mess hall (cafeteria) to have a nice, leisurely meal . . . while the air gushed out of the hull breaches.

A very strange dream. Finally, I was able to take control and lucid dream a rescue before everyone died.

And then the alarm went off and NPR regaled me with stories about the recent shooting in Colorado.

Hello, Monday.

In other news, don’t be surprised if this shows up in a story at some point. :)

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

1. Crash.
   
   

   So, let me get this straight. They came at the very least 50 or 60 light-years. They either did so in many generations or somehow managed to harness enough energy to propel their ship at relativistic speeds (so they would age a little while dozens or hundreds of years went by in the universe around them) or broke the laws of physics and got here basically instantaneously. And beings who have this high level of technology then enter Earth's atmosphere and can't handle it? Or crash into a windmill and lose control of their craft? And while we're using logic, what makes us think they'll think anything like us, look anything like us, or be able to breathe our air or eat anything that evolved on Earth?



2. Kidnap drunk rednecks for anal probing.
   
   

   I'm not even sure this rates a comment.



3. Cut chunks off cows.
   
   

   I've had some very tasty beef in my day. And it was worth driving a half-hour to get to a really good restaurant, or marinate and grill it myself. I don't know what you'd have to be high on to have the munchies bad enough for a trip that far. Not to mention that if they're seriously coming from another star to cut tongues, eyes, lips, udders, reproductive organs, and rectums off of cows, I have a bridge I'd like to sell them. No, seriously. Send them to me.



4. Draw pretty pictures in fields of grain.
   
   

   Because these technologically advanced, incredibly bored aliens like nothing more than to do the equivalent of drive from Nuwuk Lake, Alaska to Lago Navanno, Argentina (look 'em up!), get out of their car, and vandalize grain fields with alien graffiti. You gotta be druuuuuunk to do something like that.

1. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless operated upon by an external force.


2. An object in motion tends to move at the same velocity unless operated upon by an external force.

"What?" you may be asking yourself right now. But seriously, it's true. There are occasions when there is only one side, and there are occasions when there are many sides.

When writing (or filming) a story that is based on scientific findings, for instance, you do not have to look up every kook in your little black book of sources to find the one nutjob who has what you'll undoubtedly try to convince the audience is "an opposing viewpoint." Unfortunately, this all too often has the effect of equating valid, sound scientific theory with something completely insane that some idiot pulled out of thin air.

Let's say NASA released a report that showed there was water ice at the poles of Mars and that there is evidence that it has been liquid in the very recent past.

What you should do: interview the NASA people making the claim, talk to some exogeologists who understand the conditions on Mars, read and familiarize yourself with the actual findings, and try to find a way to explain it to your lay audience so that it's not long-winded and boring.

What you should do if the scientific community is genuinely divided:¹ interview proponents of all the major camps, familiarize yourself with the actual findings, and then present the story in such a way as to make it clear which theory (or theories) has the most support and so on. There's probably no such thing as an even division in science unless the discovery is new. A decent "recent" example might be the discovery of the "hobbit" skeletons on the island of Flores (Homo floresiensis). Scientists at the time were casting about for possible hypotheses to explain their small stature and whether they were recent or ancient. No consensus had yet been reached, so any well-written report would have had to show that and note that theory X was favored by the majority, but theories Y and Z also had significant proponents.²

What you should not do: interview the NASA people making the claim, then find some way-out-on-the-fringe wacko who is convinced that Hitler clones have been bred on Mars by Nazi scientists and are merely waiting for the signal to invade Earth. Then present them both as though they are equally valid "theories."

What you really shouldn't do: interview every idiot with a conspiracy theory or delusional belief that there are aliens on Mars, then talk to the NASA scientists, then edit the story so that 95% of the article/show is the idiotic/delusional nonsense, then toss in a sound-byte at the very end from the NASA scientists, generally refuting alternate "theories." (This is usually accompanied by a knowing, superior smirk on the face of said scientists, because they can't believe anyone is actually stupid enough to take the nub-job seriously.)

Here's the end of a recent article about Joe Scarborough that appeared on a blog called Talking Points Memo:

But it makes us wonder: Did Scarborough, planning a run for Congress from a deeply socially conservative Florida panhandle district, sought [sic] to get involved in the Griffin case as a way to associate himself with, and build support among, the anti-abortion movement? In other words, was Scarborough's political career launched in part by exploiting the dangerous strain of right-wing extremism that views the defense of an accused killer of an abortion provider as a cause celebre?

At the very least, it's worth asking...

Um, no. No, it isn't worth asking. What you've done here—and let me be absolutely blunt—is to ask leading questions in a deliberate attempt to manipulate your readers / viewers into being left with the impression that there's more there. In reality, your research—assuming you did more than look it up on Wikipedia—didn't turn up any evidence to support your claims, so you just decided to ask the question to slant your audience's opinion in the direction you wanted them to go. If a lawyer tried to pull this crap in court, there would be a loud and indignant objection from opposing counsel, and rightfully so.

You have no idea how long I've been waiting for a specific, clear-cut example of this to turn up somewhere I could link to.

Let's say you're writing a story or filming a news segment about the economy. You have your own opinion, which is that we're all going to Hell on a crowded express elevator. So you contact a number of economists and pose the same question to them: "Where is the economy headed?"

Let's say 33.3% of them say "It will make the Great Depression look like a Presbyterian bake sale." Another 33.3% of them say "Every indication is that we're starting to pull out of the nose-dive." And 33.3% of them say "It's holding steady, with no definite trends in either direction, so it's hard to say." The remaining .1% either had no opinion or didn't answer their phones. :)

What you should do: write the story / edit the film segment in such a way as to represent what the economists actually said. Sure, it wasn't what you thought, but as a journalist, your job is to report, not to preach.

What you should not do: write the story / edit the film segment to highlight only those opinions that support your own opinion (this is a logical fallacy called "cherry picking"), giving little or no attention to those that did not agree, or attempting to discredit them. However you rationalize it, you're no longer reporting; you're propagandizing.

What you really shouldn't do: ignore the economists who didn't agree with your pre-formed conclusion and write the story / edit the film segment to say something like "I asked several prominent economists where they thought the economy was headed, and this is what they said," and then use only the clips that support your foregone conclusion. This is called "stacking the deck"; selecting only the bits of research that support your claim while ignoring all the ones that do not.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's extremely difficult to keep bias out of your writing. For instance, if you've read my footnotes, you'll have noticed that I (deliberately) used the term "ID-iots" to refer to proponents of Intelligent Design. I also tacked "Creationism" on after the term. By doing so, I clearly state where my sympathies lie. (Not that there was any doubt, of course.)

But I could do it in so much more subtle a way, if I wanted to. Want an example? How about the way the media reports any story having to do with the issue of abortion? Here are two sentences that say the same thing, but are biased differently.

On one side of the entrance to the abortion clinic were peaceful protesters bearing signs and chanting 'Abortion Is Murder!' while on the other, burly escorts furtively rushed patients past the protesters.

On one side of the entrance to the OBGyn clinic were a mob waving signs and shouting 'Abortion Is Murder!' while on the other, volunteer escorts protectively accompanied patients past the protesters.

Those are fairly crude and certainly a bit heavy-handed with florid adverbs, but I wanted it to be to demonstrate how the choice of a few words could change the entire tone of essentially the same story so that the author's bias is represented, but never openly stated.

"Peaceful protesters" vs. "a mob of picketers." The first implies that there was no violence while the second one connotes a sense of menace. By the same token, "peaceful" could still mean that they were shouting things; just in a non-threatening way.

"Abortion clinic" vs. "OBGyn clinic." While both are factually true, one highlights what's going on there and the other downplays it.

"Bearing signs" vs. "waving signs." Bearing is passive; waving is active. It (not-so-)subtly connotes the opinion of the writer about the group.

"Chanting" vs. "shouting." Chanting conjures images of monks praying in Latin while "shouting" connotes a much more unruly, emotional act.

"Burly escorts" vs. "volunteer escorts." One highlights the fact that the escorts are clearly meant as bodyguards and the other underplays that by pointing out that they are donating their time without compensation. They may, indeed, be burly, but the second sentence doesn't mention that.

"Furtively rushed patients past" vs. "protectively accompanied patients past." This is where I got really heavy-handed. :) The words "furtively" and "rushed" together connote that what the escorts are doing is shady and underhanded. But "protectively" and "accompanied" imply that the picketers are dangerous and that the patients needed protection to get past them.

What a journalist should do is attempt to keep opinion to him/herself as much as possible.

On one side of the entrance to the OBGyn clinic where Dr. Smith also performs abortions were a group of protesters—many of them holding or waving signs—loudly proclaiming 'Abortion Is Murder!' in unison. On the other side, volunteer escorts from Townsville University's football team accompanied the patients to the door.

That's probably still not quite right, but I'm not a journalist. :) I'm a ranter who diatribes with the express purpose of underscoring the negative aspects of the thing I'm ranting against while simultaneously underplaying anything negative about my own 'side.'

Evil Lawyer: Mrs. Smith, isn't it true that you once contributed money to al qaeda?

Slightly Less-Evil Lawyer: Objection! Irrelevant!

Judge: Sustained.

Evil Lawyer: I'll withdraw the question.

Judge: <to the court reporter> Strike the last question from the record. <to the jury> You will disregard the question.