OT: More broadcast journalism

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/1/2010 10:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
>Perhaps the crime rate in Arizona has increased (if in fact that is
>the case) because there are more sheriffs out looking for
>illegal-alien-looking people.<
>
>Maybe, but now we have evidence that they're *not* looking.
>
>It sounds to me too that if Holmes's opinion in this case is hasty, to say
>the least.

I would not say of Holmes anything was "hasty," but perhaps Sir
Arthur was mistaken.  Where should we look for more data?  Agatha
Christie/Miss Marple?  She was a keen observer.


>JL
>
>On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: More broadcast journalism
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 5/1/2010 09:15 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
> > >Twice in the past few days (Lou Dobbs this morning + one other time
> > >a few days ago by someone else, but I don't remember who)
> > >conservative commentators have asserted that Arizona now has a crime
> > >rate equal to that of NYC.  That seems unremarkable.  I'm sure there
> > >are many places with crime rates that equal or exceed
> > >NYC's...Detroit, Richmond, St, Louis, Atlanta, maybe.
> >
> > Sherlock Holmes always said (well, he said once) that there was
> > surely more crime in the country than in the city, because there was
> > less chance of being observed.  (Gov. Bradford of Plymouth would
> > probably have agreed with him.  When journalizing 1642 -- a year when
> > he was seriously disturbed about the apparently increased rate of
> > serious crime -- Bradford wrote "hear [that is, here] (as I am verily
> > perswaded) is not more evills in this kind, nor nothing nere so many
> > by proportion, as in other places; but they are here more discoverd
> > and seen, and made publick by due serch, inquisition, and due punishment".)
> >
> > Perhaps the crime rate in Arizona has increased (if in fact that is
> > the case) because there are more sheriffs out looking for
> > illegal-alien-looking people.  Just as the rate of <name any of
> > several diseases> has increased because we are now better at finding it.
> >
> >
> > >It would only be noteworty if there was an equal amount of total
> > >crime, nest-ce pas?
> >
> > Why is the total amount of crime more significant than the rate (say,
> > per person per year)?
> >
> > Joel
> >
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>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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