(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Without dissection in writing, well, okay I’ll say it: Writing is academic [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-30 In tenth grade biology class I objected to doing frog dissection. Alright, I know what you’re thinking: No guts, no glory, right? Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Since I know you’re all foaming at the mouth (just an expression, just an expression) to find out what I did in its place, alright I’ll come out with it: I’ll give you the full disclosure. I labeled trees around the high-school grounds instead. Really exciting stuff, right? I used a labeling gun to print out embossed labels that once the tape backing was peeled off, these could be fastened to most any smooth surface due to the adhesive backing the plastic labels had and exposed, once the backing tape was removed. I stuck the labels to the metal and plastic — I will call them badges or placards because I don’t know their proper name — that were positioned in the ground already adjacent to each tree. I printed out on each label each tree’s scientific name. To repeat: Really exciting stuff, I know. The point here, just in case you’re wondering where this whole thing is going, is the importance of dissection in writing. When I objected to dissecting a frog in biology class, in looking back, that was probably a missed opportunity. Just like by not dissecting one’s writing or in the broader sense, one’s work, here again, missed opportunity. It’s not just that: The long and short of the matter is the the whole exercise is academic. So here’s a case in point. In an Oct. 4, 2008 Los Angeles Times report on the Sept. 12, 2008 Chatsworth, California train-to-train head-on collision between a freight and passenger train that led to the deaths of 25 people and to the injuries (of varying degree) sustained by 135 others, in that particular article that I’m alluding to, there was a statement given by William Keppen, a railroad consultant at the time, something to the effect that when Keppen himself was a locomotive engineer, during his career, he witnessed what he referred to in the piece as a “false clear” signal indication, a condition Keppen argued that was rare. He had expressed that he saw these indications twice, and in both instances he had the presence of mind not to move his train forward onto presumably a single-track section ahead because he could predict, I’m sure, with reasonable confidence what the outcome would had been if he had. Certain disaster! The possibility was raised in the Chatsworth, California crash that a key governing signal that was allegedly ran past by a supposedly errant Metrolink locomotive and train, the engineer of which had allegedly been derelict in his duties on, could have been displaying a false clear indication. Four on-site witnesses testified accordingly that they bore witness to just such a condition. They said that what they had observed was that the signal in question was showing green or a “track clear” indication, and not the red signal display (a stop indication) on that fateful day. That was the ultimate determination from the follow-up investigation conducted that was made. The problem as I see it with the L.A. Times report in question in that regard was that there was no mention whatsoever as to why the signal indications that Keppen had observed and thus described, the account of which was included in the Oct. 4, 2008 Times article (how I came to learn about it), were what they were. As a reader, when I read that, the first thought that popped into my head was, why were those two false clear signals showing green when they should, here again, presumably, have been displaying red? What was the cause behind the false-clear-signal indications mentioned? Was it the same signal that gave that indication both times or did the false-clear-signal-indication events occur at two completely different and independent signal locations? Assuming these signal malfunctions were corrected, the question becomes: What caused the error to occur and what was done to remedy the problem to see to it that those same conditions did not happen a third or more times? The information that Keppen had provided and that which was included in the article in question is to the Times’ credit. But, when inquiring minds like mine want to know more only to learn that there was no more, that is what I would describe as a missed opportunity and that is, in my opinion, most unfortunate. Subsequent to my reading of the said Times article, and for what it’s worth, I conducted an Internet search to try to see if I could find contact information on William Keppen for the purpose of my reaching out to him so as to try to get further clarifying information in the hopes of my being able to fill in the gaps, if you will. Which leads me to come to the conclusion that it was, quite possibly, Keppen who reached out to the Times initially. Unless I am able to get in contact with Keppen directly, all I can think of at this time is a what-could-have-been scenario. Without those key pieces of clarifying information and what they could possibly reveal and help shed further light on this matter, then, without that, as far as I’m concerned, the statement given by Keppen, is, by any measure, academic. 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