Thursday, November 4, 2010Opinion

The Brownsville States-Graphic

page 4

PeeplesBy 28th Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Clayburn Peeples

2nd Tuesday of every month - 7pm The Brownsville States-Graphic(USPS ISSN 08909938) is published weekly by Haywood County Newspapers

L.L.C., 42 South Washington, P.O. Box 59, Brownsville TN 38012.

Periodicals postage paid at Brownsville, TN.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

The Brownsville States-Graphic, P.O. Box 59, Brownsville, TN 38012

“A publication of American Hometown Publishing”DEADLINES:

News, Monday at Noon • Advertising, Monday at NoonClassifi ed Advertising, Monday at Noon

Society news, Monday at Noon Legals, Monday at Noon

SUBSCRIPTIONS (PER YEAR):Haywood County $35; In-state $42; Out-of-state $49

Communications with the newspaper

must include the author’s signature,

address and telephone number. All letters to the editor refl ect the opinions of the

writer and are not necessarily those of the newspaper. The newspaper is

not responsible for unsolicited material. We reserve the right to reject or shorten letter to the editor.

731-772-1172

BrownsvilleSTATES-GRAPHICSTATES-GRAPHIC

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Calvin Carter,Rebecca GrayStaff Writer

Sara Clark,Josh AndersonGraphic Design

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Leticia OrozcoReceptionist

Vicky Fawcett,Office Manager

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Vicky Fawcett,Offi ce Manager

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Ceree Peace PostonReceptionist

Calvin Carter,Staff Writer

Julie Pickard,Staff Writer

Matt GarrettGraphic Designer

The Brownsville States-Graphic(USPS ISSN 08909938) is published weekly by Haywood County Newspapers

L.L.C., 42 South Washington, P.O. Box 59, Brownsville TN 38012.

Periodicals postage paid at Brownsville, TN.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

The Brownsville States-Graphic, P.O. Box 59, Brownsville, TN 38012

“A publication of American Hometown Publishing”DEADLINES:

News, Monday at Noon • Advertising, Monday at NoonClassifi ed Advertising, Monday at Noon

Society news, Monday at Noon Legals, Monday at Noon

SUBSCRIPTIONS (PER YEAR):Haywood County $35; In-state $42; Out-of-state $49

Communications with the newspaper

must include the author’s signature,

address and telephone number. All letters to the editor refl ect the opinions of the

writer and are not necessarily those of the newspaper. The newspaper is

not responsible for unsolicited material. We reserve the right to reject or shorten letter to the editor.

731-772-1172

BrownsvilleSTATES-GRAPHICSTATES-GRAPHIC

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Calvin Carter,Rebecca GrayStaff Writer

Sara Clark,Josh AndersonGraphic Design

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Leticia OrozcoReceptionist

Vicky Fawcett,Office Manager

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Vicky Fawcett,Offi ce Manager

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Ceree Peace PostonReceptionist

Calvin Carter,Staff Writer

Julie Pickard,Staff Writer

Matt GarrettGraphic Designer

Jeff PerrySports Writer

This past Halloween found me nestled on the couch, perusing through The Commercial Appeal while waiting to adorn the plastic pails and bags of numerous trick-or-treaters.

In between the ruffle of sales paper and actual worthwhile news, my eyes stumbled upon the column section of Wendi C. Thomas.

I’ll admit, I’m not really an avid reader of Thomas’ column but this one in Sunday’s paper was of particular interest.

The writer chose to issue an interesting challenge out to her readers, requesting that they pay a compliment to someone.

Sounds easy right?Here’s the catch. Readers could not

pay the compliment to family, friends, or people they cared for or liked. It had to be towards someone you normally wouldn’t compliment but would do just the opposite.

It’s interesting and really shows just how hard it is to compliment someone versus initially criticize.

You compliments cannot contain any “buts” or “however” or “even thoughs.”

For example, I couldn’t say something like “even though I personally find Kim Jong an unstable and dangerous loon incapable of running a country, I do like his glasses.”

That doesn’t count.I would encourage

everyone to try this exercise out. Seriously take a moment, think of someone that well, I guess you can say, you wouldn’t really care to sling any kind words towards, and throw a compliment.

Okay I’ll start off easy.

To the people whom, every morning on the way to work choose to go ten miles below the speed limit on Highway 14, I think you’re honestly great for causing me to work on the skill of patience.

Thank you.

Okay, not so bad. Let’s try someone a little harder.

I think Lady Gaga should be appreciated for bringing something, er um, different to the pop charts.

Okay we were slipping a bit there. Let’s try someone else.

Nicholas Cage, I applaud your bravery for some of the wigs you wear in the movies. What don’t look at me like that. I’m being sincere. Besides, like I have any room to talk when it comes to hair choices.

To the guy who is talking loudly on his cell phone, thank you for deeming me worthy to hear your entire conversation. By the way, I’m really glad Jerry got into grad school, and like you I don’t really agree with his choice to marry Sophie so soon. You’re right, he should wait until he graduates.

Okay maybe that was a bit murky. Let’s try to make the next compliment clear.

Hey, George Lucas, I think it was neat that

the Star Wars Prequel movies wrapped up the story. You gave us closure by delving into the past. I respect that.

Okay and now for the final test.

Hey MTV I really like… Um no, okay I got this.

MTV is really great with their…Yeah I’ve got nothing. Obvisouly I’ve still got some more practicing to do.

In the meantime, I’d like to encourage readers to do the same. If you read something online that you don’t like, honestly, take a moment and find something nice you can say about it and say it. Nothing more.

If there is a person who drives you crazy, whether it is work, acquaintances or family, shoot them a compliment.

Look at it this way, you can criticize or verbally castigate someone to the cows come home, and chances are it’ll make little difference. But being a little positive could provide better results.

By now, unless you’ve been out of the country somewhere, you have probably seen the video clip of an older woman (Or is it a man in drag?) walking down the street in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, talking, apparently, on a cell phone. Nothing unusual about that, except that the film clip was originally made in 1928 at the premier of a Charlie Chaplin movie called The Circus.

There were, of course, no cell phones in 1928; they weren’t even demonstrated until 1973, and it wasn’t until the 1990’s that they became small enough to conceal in your hand.

It seems a Belfast film maker who is a Charlie Chaplin fan purchased a boxed set of DVD’s of some of Chaplin’s major movies, and one of them had a “short subject” on it about the premier of The Circus, with footage of the crowd outside the theater. Upon watching it, he spotted the woman and became fascinated, unable to figure out how a woman could be using a cell phone in 1928. A few days ago he posted the segment containing the woman on the Internet, and it went “viral”, gathering more than a million and a half hits in just a few days. Most major news organizations picked it up as well.

And if you’re one of the millions of people who have seen it, you know that it does, in fact, look as if this older woman is walking down the street talking on a cell phone. It’s a very provocative film clip.

But is the woman truly a time traveler, as many people have suggested? An amazing number of people seem to think she is, and that’s pretty interesting, considering that virtually no scientist who studies such things believes time travel to the past is possible. Some argue that the concept

may, and it’s a real big may, be theoretically possible, but as a practical matter, it’s never going to happen.

“But that’s thinking,” said a guy I was talking to about it, “based on today’s knowledge. Who knows what advances science will come up with in the future.”

And that’s true. History is replete with predictions that grossly underestimate the future progress of technology and science. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” said Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, in 1943. “The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communications. The device is inherently of no value to us,” declared a Western Union internal memo on 1876.

“Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value,” Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French commander of allied forces, declared during the closing days of World War I, and then there is this; “Everything that can be invented, has been invented.” That’s what Charles Duell, Commissioner, United States Office of Patents, said in 1899.

So yes, we don’t know what the future holds, but for the foreseeable future, except in movies and novels, time travel is impossible, and barring a quantum leap in quantum physics, it will be for the next 50 years.

At least, that’s what the counter argument holds. “But it’s got to be a cell phone,” my friend continued. “It couldn’t be one of those old-fashioned hearing tubes; they were too big. Plus, you can see her talking on the film. It had to be a cell phone.”

I’m sorry, but don’t buy the theory that she is from another era. I wish I could. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of time travel ever since

I read “The Sound of Thunder” in the 1950’s. That’s the Ray Bradbury short story about a time traveling dinosaur hunter who accidently steps off the company’s designated pathway on a trip back to prehistoric times and steps on a butterfly. He thinks it doesn’t matter, but when he returns to the present he finds that the person elected president before his trip has now lost the election instead. This “butterfly effect” caused infinitesimal changes through the ages that altered an election in the 20th Century and who knows what else.

I love time traveling fiction, but the truth is, there were small, fairly unobtrusive hearing tubes (They called them ear trumpets.) back then, and some of them were fairly small, hand-held models that even had fashionable coverings that made them look like women’s purses. There’s a picture of a crocodile skin covered one on the Internet that looks something like a wallet you would see a woman carrying today. The “time traveler” could have well been carrying one of them.

And there’s an old, old principle of medieval philosophy called Occam’s Razor that admonishes us that when we are given more than one set of possibilities to explain a given phenomenon, the simplest one is usually correct. In other words, simpler answers are more likely to be correct than complex ones, because “nature” prefers simplicity.

So, reluctantly, I think the film simply shows an old woman walking down the street holding a fancy, perhaps fashionable, ear trumpet to her ear. Frankly, as I said, I wish I could think otherwise, but I don’t.

But I still can’t figure out who she might have been talking to.

The Nicest things

I’d never say

Time After Time