A losing battle trying to use logic with someone with an idee fixe
A Worn Out Star Grade Lee
- Thread starter Briar Lee
- Start date
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I had to look that one up..,A losing battle trying to use logic with someone with an idee fixe
But I find the bloviating humorous at times.
Having been on a trial as a juror, I did notice that lawyers tend to say things over and over and are highly repetitious. At some point, I guess all that repeating the same mantra over and over makes it so.
Picard: Make it so!
Picard: Make it so!
Not the good ones, sir. Our job is not only to tell the story in a way that the jury understands and accepts, but to acknowledge and refute the opposing side's best arguments.
If all I did as a defense attorney was to repeat that my client didn't do it and that he was, in fact, a good old fashioned Christian, I could tell all the Harry Hosterman stories I wanted and the jury would only be listening to the prosecution's version of the case. My client would be convicted.
That's what I find so darned frustrating about these Pipes by Lee threads. If we throw out all of the facts Briar Lee is assuming that are not admissible as evidence, unprovable and without a shred of documentation, we're left with the indisputable fact that plenty of pipe smokers had the opportunity to buy a Lee the first time around and passed. Alternatively, they bought one, smoked it twice, and proclaimed it hooey.
Knowing he's a fellow attorney makes it harder, because he knows better than to argue this way. I keep objecting!
And I'd like to say for the record that I <like> Mr. Lee. His enthusiasm is wonderful and there's not enough of that around. Also, he's got a great collection of pipes that I'd look at and handle with pleasure and I look forward to his postings with a mixture of pleasure at his personality and dread at the hooey being peddled.
So congenial of you. You ARE an attorney, LOL. Just Kidding. On the trial I served on, both parties conceded that the two defendants did indeed kill the young man in question. The defense argued that basically "he had it coming" . The repetitions were to make sure we all understood why.
The second defendant's attorney took a different tact. She was actually quite brilliant. Her argument was basically that her defendant didn't hold or fire the gun in question and that if he did have a weapon in his hand, no one could definitively say what that weapon was... it was a screwdriver, we think.
What puzzled me was that a gang land leader was there to witness the murder. His name was "Pancho". He knew the defendants. Had spoken to them earlier that day. Followed them to where the murder was to be committed and then drove off when it happened - after he witnessed it. He was never charged, but the question that was never answered was he observing it for a reason?
Lots of unanswered questions. The Jury barely found the defendants guilty of a crime they both admitted to - they plead manslaughter, not murder. The charge was murder.
I was the Forman. The jury was polled three times and I was surprised they maintained their verdict. The victims celebrated when hearing the verdict of guilty. Literally jumping up and down and cheering. The women on the jury were crying - amazed at the indifference to what they found to be a difficult decision.
Very restorable. Ream and a good alcohol soak. The crack is an easy fix with crazy glue. A restorers dream this one
Hah! We need to be congenial. Nobody else likes us! But I am being honest. I think Mr. Lee and I would get along just fine, even if I don't agree with him.
What you describe us the invaluable inside view I almost never saw in my career. Win or lose, I always tried to get a chance to talk to a juror about how the jury's decision was reached and almost nobody would ever want to stick around and tell me. Not that I blame them. They probably felt that they'd spent enough time.
Now, back to Pipes by Lee!
I couldn't have put it better myself.
I applaud his enthusiasm and passion.
And his affability.
And fund of local lore.
Without his input, I (and without doubt the majority of Forums members) would have been totally oblivious to the existence of Pipes by Lee.
If I did, I believe I’d find only a sandwich of tars that soaked inside the briar and destroyed it’s vitality on the inside and the out. In the center, the briar would still look fresh and brown.
The same phenomena occurs in meerschaum pipes, accelerated by using beeswax to seal the exterior.
Only, the boiled and dried, and preferably aged, burls of the roots of heath trees grown around the rim on the Mediterranean are useful for smoking tobacco. There is no other wood as useful, although men have tried every root and wood under the sun as a cheaper replacement.
I believe the reason we must rest our pipes between smokes, has to do with the porosity of briar.
I believe the reason I own over two hundred briar pipes and not one smokes exactly just the same, is due to the flavor of the briar being imparted to the smoke.
I’ve believed all this for nearly sixty years, since Harry Hosterman philosophized about the mysteries of briar while squatted under an oak tree in front of my father’s milk barn.
I can even remember asking him why, and his answer was the same reason there were over twenty kinds of oak trees in Spout Spring Hollow, and only a white oak could be useful for making bourbon whiskey barrels, none other.
Harry thought briar was God’s gift to pipe smokers, and as I get older, that’s the only explanation that explains it all.
That sums up the fundamental problem with this "discussion" quite succinctly.
It's a castle built on sand.
And an appeal to authority in Harry Hosterman, the missing witness.
Clearly his believes are rooted in his ruminations rather than facts
I identify as Christian.
I’m not about to debate theology or Christian dogma. Or rain on the beliefs of millions.
But one has to take even the Bible with the proverbial pinch of salt
I identify as Christian.
I’m not about to debate theology or Christian dogma. Or rain on the beliefs of millions.
But one has to take even the Bible with the proverbial pinch of salt
I would hazard a guess that @Briar Lee may be unaware of how many pipes @georged has probably handled, repaired, and beautifully restored and brought back to life in his career and knows whether "the shank has swollen and cracked from zillions of smokes" or not, better than a good many people on this forum combined.
Do you think it would change his mind if he knew?
@Briar Lee I think your posts are fantastic and love reading each of them. Please don’t let those who are competing for the gold metal in the Pedantic Olympics cramp your style. There are some knowns when it comes to pipes but there are far more unknowns. My pipes make me happy and I‘m always curious to learn why another pipe smoker‘s pipes make them happy. The idea of arguing with them about it strikes me as absurd.
My dad was a lawyer too, he practiced for 45 years. Here we are in front of his collection, nearly 500 pipes, not long before he retired:
My dad was a lawyer too, he practiced for 45 years. Here we are in front of his collection, nearly 500 pipes, not long before he retired:
So, you did three Everclear & salt treatments.
Everclear attracts water. You attracted so much moisture in the mortise area that the tenon split it when inserted.
That’s the facts.
They are indisputable.
Everclear attracts water. You attracted so much moisture in the mortise area that the tenon split it when inserted.
That’s the facts.
They are indisputable.
Pedantry involves expressing excessive detail that isn't relevant, NOT challenging factual accuracy.
Those are very different things.
Social media being as pervasive as it is, many new PipeWorlders find their way here in their early days, and separating nonsense, misinformation, and (occasional) relentlessly touted fanciful beliefs from fact is important. (Not that pipe smoking in itself a Planetary Essential of some sort, but that can also be said of cooking, guitar making, mountain climbing, or ANY activity that involves physical reality.)
Why? Because fact matters. Always. Categorically, and without exception.
Discovering that is what allowed humans to move past sacrtificing children to gods and so forth in an attempt to change the world around them. A behavior which consumed the first 99.5% of their existence.
I love this photo bro. Thank you for sharing it again.