Ball Kowals/et

Tales of gin and Maalox

Gulping down numerous gin-
twists at “John Glenn’s Last Stop
Saloon” last Monday, trying to
forget Washington’s Brithday, I_
ran into two old friends of mine:
Wilbur “Pinky” Basker and
Hoochie “Walter” Koslowski.

I could tell by their drinks that
they were bothered by something.
Gin and Maalox. In my entire life I
had seen only one other man order
these gutrtwisters, and he too was
drinking to forget. Fatty Sturgeons
was his name, and he drank seven
GdtM's when his brother
Squeamish committed suicide by
putting his head between the folds
of an accordion/during the Beer
Barrel Polka. I decided 'to talk
to the two obviously distressed
men before they did something
embarrassing.

AFTER the obligatory
pleasantries, I got down to
business, “Gin and Maaloxes,'eh
boys? Must be something Sitting

heavy in your gullet.” (I have a ‘

way with words.)

”Boy, howdy,” said the Hooch.
“You wouldn’t believe what
happened. We were picked up by a
ﬂying saucer." Sensing a strand of
truth in this Story, I launched my
attack: “A what?" I asked.

“A flying saucer." replied Pinky
“with men from outer space in it.”

I THOUGHT for a moment. Are ‘

these guys putting me on, or is it

just the Maalox talking? I decided _
to get to the bottom of their story, ’

so I took a different approach.
“Huh?"
Pinky’s eyes seemed ready to

pop out of his head so I ﬁgured I .

should let up on my cross-

examination. “Why don't you tell .

me the whole story, Pink," I said.
“Just tell me what happened.” He
wiped his forehead with a cocktail
napkin, and taking a deep breath,
began. Hoochie just sat staring into

space, gnawing on the edge of his
glass.

“ME AND the Hooch were
coming home from a few games of
‘kick the cat' behind the bowling
alley when all of a sudden we see
up in the sky, what looks like a
giant possum with lights. We were
both so amazed, we just sat and

ared at If".
its) theh what happened?" 1

prodded.

“Then our car went off the road.
We were 0.K. though, but the‘
Studebaker was a total loss. Then
we noticed the possumrlike thing in
the road. It was as big as a house.
Then a door right behind the left
foreleg opens up and out steps this
creature."

“What’d he look like'.’H I asked.

“WELL I'm not so sure. Maybe
it was because of the car crash and
all, but I thought it looked like
Marlo Thomas, and the Hooch said
it resembled Denny McLain."

“Denny McLain" mumbled the
Hooch.

“So what happened then?” I
'questioned, sensing l was on to
something. ‘

“We’re not sure.“ replied Pinky,
“next thing either of us remember
is sitting in a booth at a Howard
Johnson’s somewhere in Pitts
burgh. The aliens were seated
across from us. One of them looked
like Barbara Jordan. the other like
Sterno Wetones."

“Stemo Wetones the famous
coffeerarmerT"

“THE one and the same,” he
replied. “We all ordered the clams,
as it was ‘All You Can Eat Night.’
The aliens would take the clams
and put them into plastic bags they
had tied to their belts. They went
' through fifteen ordels before’the
waitress caught on to what was
happening.”

“So did she do anything?” I

 

 

 

Bruce Weindmcb
Faculty raises expectations

I believe I'm finally becoming
comfortable in my role as an
outspoken Republican journalist.
It's taken some time to master, but
[realized I was on the rightyack
when I sat down to write the first
article of the New Year, and all
that would come to mind were a list
of clever New Year’s resolutions.

You've probably seen the type
I’m talking aboutiwith scathing
attacks on Norman Mailer,
pronouncements on the virtues of
fiscal responsibility, and
references to the grand future of
the Young Americans for
Freedom. In fact, so comfortable
am I in my role as an outspoken
Republican journalist, that I’ve
decided to leave New Year’s
resolution, like I've left DAR.
teas, and too-short polyester bell-
bottoms, to the more qualified
members of the Republican ranks.

FREED of that task, I can turn
my attention to a much ignored
subject around Grinnell Collegw
the faculty. More specifically, I’d
like to deal with an attitude, which,
thank goodness, many professors
foster.

I think it would be agreed that

We are expanding

most Grinnell professors demand
quite a lot from their students, but
did you ever stop to think that at:
the same time, many will en-
courage theu- students not only to
expect, but to demand the but of
themselves! I’m not quite sure
how it works, but it's definitely
there. .

[1‘ Sometimes starts with a visit
to a professor‘s office whereupon
the professor will suggest some
book or article that the student
might be interested in reading.
Next thing the student lmows, a
rapport has begun to develop, and
depending upon the specific

lprofasor‘s bias some plans for the .

student‘s academic or non-
academic future are suggested.
Three years pass, and almost
Without waming, the student finds
him or herself writing away for
catalogs from the ten best
graduate schools in their
respective field, charting a climb
through the Hlmllayas, or making
plans to head off to New York to
become the best jazz saxophonist

 

 

in the world. granted, a lot of the
expectationrraising by the faculty
is a result of Grinnell chauvinism.

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asked.

“She never had a chance. When
she went to get the manager, the
creatures left in a hurry, saying
something about a Veterans of
Foreign Wars dance. We waited
ten minutes or so and then left that
place. We’ve hitch-hiked for three
days straight just to get back here.
I’ll never be the same.” .

NEVER be the same." mumbled
the Hooch.

Pinky slumped back in his seat,
physically and emotionally
drained. Perhaps they WERE
telling the truth., Naw, it couldn’t
be.

I couldn’t think of much to say,
so I downed the last of my drink
and left. As I took my coat and hat
off the rack by the door I heard the
sound of a glass break. I turned to
see that the Hooch had finally
bitten through his glass. 1 went to
my car and drove off.

“THAT Maalox will do it
everytime,” I said to the inﬂatable
deer I had strapped across the
hood of the car.

Just then I noticed four holes in
the road. I stopped the car and got
out. Being a former Webelo Scout,
I knew my tracks pretty well.
“Bluejay,” I thought at first,
though the massive size of each one
(at least 6 feet long) caused me to
reconsider.

“Sasquatch. Nope, rounder than
Sasquatch. Giant Possum. Must’ve
. been the size of a house."

THEN it hit me. Pinky and the
Hooch were telling the truth. I
walked back to the car in a daze. I
got out the bottle of “Colonel Tom
Hyster’s Spilling Whiskey" from
the glove compartment and poured
two glasses. One for me and one for
the deer. I never drink alone. I
made the deer’s a double. It was
going to be a long cold night.

 

You know, people who come to
Grinnell College do so to get a
superior education, so why not
expect the best after leaving
Grinnell? Mere expectation-
raising is not an accurate
description, .uf,. what these
professors do. More im rtantly, it
is their ability to help I e students
.become comfortable with ex»
i pectations that is important.

‘ I THINK that in all honutv.
.there’s a time when all of us
wonder if we can meet certain
1 expectations, self-imposed or
l otherwise. It is at these times that I
llpexsonally have found that there
l are certain members of Grinnell’s
‘ faculty who can be most helpful. In
t many cases, through sound advice
‘backed up by experience, many
faculty members are able to help a
student gain the confidence to
tackle most any task.

‘ Before I get too maudlin, I’ll end
"with this note: if you find yourself
unsure about your future, find
yourself a sympathetic faculty
member and make themostof it. If
you’ve already done so, you’ll
know what I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

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Next To Cinema Theatre

 

lTlIe Scarlet & Black. February 24. 1978—page 5

 

 

pen Space

here’s the debate?

by Peter Druian

There cannot really be a debate
going on about which form of
facility evaluation to use, can
there”.

For over 20 years clinical
psychologists, measurement
psychologists, personality and
social psychologists (and even a
sociologist or two, or three) have
addressed the question: which is
better—cold, inhuman, statistical
summary evaluations or the
sensitive insight of personal
evaluation?

wrrn tedious regularity the
answer is always the same. And it
always has two parts. First, any
attempt to evaluate, describe, or
perceive validly another person is
always fraught with theoretical
and metatheoretical problems.
Second, if we do our best anyway,
statistical prediction is always
superior to personalrdacriptive
prediction. (on Paul Meehl, would
that you were 250 miles south.)

This same answer has reap
peared so often that there is now
excellent research being done on
the ironic but obvious question:
why in the face of all evidence to

the contrary do we persist in.

putting so much stock in personal
evaluations? What is it about these
things that we trust them more,
though their truth is less? The
research suggests two com-
plementary reasons.

FIRST of all, we are apparently
rather stupid when it comes to
smtistics. That is, we are not very
good intuitive counters of events,
calculators of means, or com-
parators of distributions. We only
do well at these things if we (a)
have arduous training or (b) use
tools like tallies on paper, adding
machines. or (pace Moberg)
computers. (We also do well on

problems which are ridiculously

easy.)

Indeed, apparently we are so
stupid that we have e intuitive
perception of the superiority these
tools provide. Would that we all
were trained enough in statistics to
appreciate the extra power these
tools give.

BUT there is yet another reason.
Apparently we have a kind of blind
egocentrism about us which leads
us to make a very bad equation. We
believe that the more personally
involved we are in some task, the
more control we have and the more
accurate our knowledge in the
task.

This was recently illustrated, in
part, in a wonderfully simple study
(Langer, 1975). Some people were
allowed to select raffle tickets
while others were assigned rafﬂe
tickets to a $50 lottery. All tickeu
cost $1.00. After some weeks. and
just before the rafﬂe, all people
were approached for a trade. The
experimenter wanted to trade a
new ticket for the one the people
had. The question was how much
money did the experimenter have
to add to sweeten the deal in order
to conclude the swap. Note that,
statistically speaking, in reality, a
fair trade is just a‘straight swap,
no money added.

The results showed that those
people who were assigned a ticket
demanded, on the average, about
an extra $2 before agreeing to the
deal. But those who chose their
tickets themselves, in other words
had personal involvement~though
that involvement in reality had no
effect on likelihood of winning7
demanded on the average over 38
before they would agree. (And no
Virginia, you do not add your
personal ”luck" when you choose
your own ticket, though I‘m sure
you feel it).

DOING personal evaluations
”seems” to most of us, intuitively,
like it is somehow “better.” But
that seeming is as misguided as the
feelings of the lottery players.
Also, I cannot help noting that in
Langer‘s study, her participants’
foolishness in reality benefited
themithey pocketed $8. I cannot
see the same good outcome from
continuation of the present

.faculty evaluation system for its

participants.

A linal note. I must apologize
since I was not at the faculty
meeting, so I guess I deserve the
outcome. But then maybe I would
have said something there I would
have regretted. But no matter, as I
intimated at the beginning, there
cannot really be a debate going on
about which form of evaluation to
use. '

It must be about something else.

 

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