The Rule of Three and writing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia article about the Rule of Three says it is a writing principle which suggests that a trio of events (or characters) is more humorous, or satisfying, or effective than other numbers. A well-known example with three monkeys is shown above. In a post on September 20, 2016 titled Great versus small minds I gave another example:

 

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

 

In that blog post I referred to an article by Andrew Dlugan at Six Minutes on May 27, 2009 titled How to use the Rule of Three in your speeches. Another article by Lisa B. Marshall at Quick and Dirty Tips on November 1, 2013 is titled How to communicate better using the Rule of Three. An article by the late Denise Graveline in the November 2013 issue of Toastmaster magazine (on pages 16 to 19) titled Speechwriting Secrets says:

 

“The beginning-middle-end construction is just one variant on the classic ‘rule of three,’ which grew out of the ancient oral storytelling tradition. That tradition is the way we shared information before writing it. Over time, storytellers found that they and their listeners could most easily remember stories structured in three parts, which is why so many fairy tales have triads in them (think three little pigs or three blind mice). The rule of three can help you create the same dramatic tension, release and conclusion you find in such tales, writes Christopher Booker in The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories.”

 

A third example of the rule is the mission of Cirque du Soleil (stated in their About web page under at a glance):

 

“The mission of Cirque du Soleil is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses, and evoke the emotions of people around the world.”

  

There is an excellent 15-page article by Patrick Barry from 2018 in Legal Communication & Rhetoric (Volume15, pages 247 to 261) simply titled The Rule of Three. Similar information appears in his 2019 book, Good with Words (Writing and editing), where Chapter 3 is on The Rule of Three.

 

In a recent blog post on May 25, 2022 titled 20 Excellent brief YouTube videos from Patrick Barry on poise, rhythm, optimism, being dynamic, and the unexpected I linked to his video titled

Rhythm: the rule of three. There are two more great videos in one of his series at Michigan Law about writing:

 

The Rule of Three: Clint Eastwood, the Chipmunks, and the Declaration of  Independence (10:30)

 

and The Rule of Three: Nobody Has a Monopoly on Effective Language (3:09)

 

The cartoon with three monkeys came from Openclipart.

 

Why does the new logo for our water company look like the backside of an animal?

 

 

 

 

 

In the mail we just received a notice that (following a merger) our water supplier here in Boise was changing its name from SUEZ to Veolia, with the curious red abstract logo shown above. Wikimedia Commons notes the image in that logo doesn’t meet the threshold of originality for a copyright. Wikipedia says Veolia began long ago in France as the Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE). The new name looks to me like a small child’s misspelling and mispronunciation of that for a stringed instrument (a viola).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a water company, I’d have instead expected the logo image shown above - blue rather than red, and flipped with an upright teardrop rather than an inverted one.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 6, 2022 I blogged about how It is easy to parody a brand name or logo. The red Veolia logo looks to me like the backside of an animal – perhaps an otter as shown above.  

 

The image of an otter was adapted from this drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Sixteen ideas for Table Topics speeches from The Moth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking part of a Toastmasters club meeting. It’s where attendees who don’t have another formal role get to answer a question by speaking off-the-cuff for one to two minutes. There are lots of good ideas for questions, but some are called by other names, like icebreakers.

 

This year there is an excellent book titled How to Tell a Story (the essential guide for memorable storytelling from THE MOTH). Buried at the back, on pages 289 and 290 is the following list of sixteen ideas (story prompts) in five categories, condensed as follows:

 

STORY PROMPTS (Tell us about…)

 

FIRSTS

a breakthrough moment.

a first time that you regretted.

a first time that changed your life.

 

NINE TO FIVE

a time you worked hard and played hard.

a time when you were working for the weekend.

a time you didn’t see eye-to eye with management.

a time you definitely weren’t paid enough.

 

LOVE HURTS

a time it was too little, too late.

a time you had to follow your heart.

a time you loved and lost.

 

CAUGHT

a time you were busted.

a time you wove a tangled web.

A time your hand was in the cookie jar.

 

LOST AND FOUND

a time you couldn’t see what was right in front of you.

a time you couldn’t find a way out.

a time you were reunited with something you treasure.

 

The drawing of a moth came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

20 Excellent brief YouTube videos from Patrick Barry on poise, rhythm, optimism, being dynamic, and the unexpected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my previous post I discussed Does your speech have ‘legs’? Erik Palmer’s PVLEGS is a checklist for evaluating speaking by public school students. In that acronym P stands for poise, so I next looked for videos on that topic. 

 

Patrick Barry teaches at the University of Michigan Law School. He has a public speaking series with twenty YouTube videos on the five topics of Poise, Rhythm, Optimism, Dynamic, and the Unexpected. They are not linked together in a coherent way, but I searched them out and organized them. (He also has a lot of videos about writing, which I will discuss later).  

 

There are a half-dozen about POISE in speaking from the Good with Words workshop series posted on March 30, 2018. Those total to just over 12 minutes:

 

Poise: build in pauses (2:34)

 

Poise: oxygen should be a part of your presentation (2:48)

 

Poise: you don’t win points for saying the most words (1:09)

 

Poise: interpersonal skills (2:10)

 

Poise: the virtue of clarity (1:09)

 

Poise: charisma (2:20)

 

 

There are seven more on RHYTHM:

 

Rhythm: rhetorical repetition (anaphora and epistrophe)(2:14)

 

Rhythm: that’s slavery (1:41)

 

Rhythm: parallel structure (“safe place. Real support.”)(2:44)

 

Rhythm: structure, specifics, stakes (0:41)

 

Rhythm: the rule of three (4:06)

 

Rhythm: constraints can be freeing (1:20)

 

Rhythm: order out of chaos (1:00)

 

 

There are three on OPTIMISM:

 

Optimism: smile more than you think appropriate (1:55)

 

Optimism: the smile of someone who has something to share(0:54)

 

Optimism: informed hope and entrepreneurs of ideas (2:16)

 

 

There are two on being DYNAMIC:

 

Dynamic: your mouth should not be the only thing that moves(3:23)

 

Dynamic: a bad presentation with good technology is still abad presentation (1:01)

 

 

And finally, there are two on the UNEXPECTED:

 

Unexpected: be surprising in a convincing way (2:28)

 

Unexpected: include a little mischief (1:32)

 

Does your speech have ‘legs’? Erik Palmer’s PVLEGS is a checklist for evaluating speaking by public school students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the May 22 issue of Educational Leadership there is an excellent article by Erik Palmer titled Speaking Out on pages 62 to 66. He discusses teaching public speaking in schools, and his very useful PVLEGS acronym for a checklist (a rubric) where P is poise, V is voice, L is life, E is eye contact, G is gestures, and S is speed. Figure 1 has it listed as follows (and also can be downloaded as a .pdf file):

 

PVLEGS Checklist for Presentation Delivery

 

Poise

I appear calm and confident.

There are no distracting behaviors.

I recorded myself and watched for fidgeting, shuffling, and odd tics.

 

Voice

My voice is just right for the space – not too loud or too soft.

Every word can be heard.

I don’t mumble or blur words together.

 

Life

I have feeling/emotion/passion in my voice during the entire talk.

Listeners can hear that I care about my topic.

I have appropriate life in my voice.

(Enthusiasm for things I’m excited about;

sadness for sad topics, anger for upsetting things; etc).

 

Eye Contact

I look at every listener at some point during my talk.

My eye contact is natural and fluid.

If I use notes, I only glance at them quickly to remind myself of key points.

I talk to my audience, rather than read at them.

 

Gestures

My hand gestures add to my words.

Emphatic hand gestures make key points stand out.

Descriptive hand gestures make it easy to visualize my talk.

My face is full of expression. Facial gestures add to my words.

I lean in, shrug, and use other body motions to engage the audience.

 

Speed

I speed up, slow down, and pause where appropriate to add to my message.

I change pace for effect.

 

PVLEGS appeared back in 2010 in his book Well Spoken: teaching speaking to all students. There is a two-and-a-half minute YouTube video introduction. PVLEGS might be used in a rubric for multiple evaluations by advanced Toastmasters clubs, a topic I blogged about on May 2, 2022.

 

The legs cartoon was adapted from this cartoon at Wikimedia Commons.

 

You’ve got hendiadys, and you’re going to die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although it sounds like a terminal avian disease, hendiadys just is a rhetorical term which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as:

 

“the expression of an idea by the use of usually two independent words connected by and (such as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of independent word and its modifier (such as nicely warm).”

 

A Glossary and Terminology Bank at BusinessBalls derisively describes it as:

 

“a sort of tautology which for dramatic effect or emphasis expresses two aspects or points separately rather than by (more obviously and efficiently) combining them, for example: ‘The rain and wet fell incessantly...’ "

 

Of course, it has a page at Wikipedia. (Dr.) Jim Anderson has an article mentioning it at The Accidental Communicator on May 25, 2021 titled Using rhetorical devices to make a speech better. Beth Black also mentions it in her article titled The Crafting of Eloquence on pages 22 to 25 in the October 2019 issue of Toastmaster magazine.

 

There is a 22-page discussion by Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk at Legal Communication & Rhetoric on October 2020 in an article titled Hendiadys in the Language of the Law.

 

Hendiadys is a combination of two words; hendiatris (also in Wikipedia) of three.

 

The image of Peter Olch pointing at a page is via Images from the History of Medicine.

 

Highfalutin stacks on steamboats and steam locomotives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 25, 2021 I blogged about how The Joy of Search, a 2019 book by Daniel M. Russell, is an extremely useful guide about how to do research both online and offline. Mr. Russell also has a blog titled SearchReSearch. Earlier this month he posted SearchReSearch Challenge (5/11/22): Why…in New Orleans? His first item asked about if the elaborate patterning at the tops of smokestacks on river steamboats (like one shown above in a drawing) was merely decorative or functional.

 

I looked for an answer via Google, and found one in Chapter 10 (Language of the Rivers) in Jerry M. Hay’s 2006 book, Beyond the Bridges. It also can be found titled High Falutin’ at Riverlorian.com, where he says the following:

 

“Steamboats had tall smokestacks. The boats originally had boilers fired by wood. Along with the smoke there would often be flaming embers coming up from the furnace and out of the top of the smokestack. Those embers could and did start fires when they landed on the top deck or cargo. Tall stacks would give the embers a better chance to burn out before reaching the deck. In addition, the tops of the stacks were ‘fluted.’ Fluting consisted of wire or steel mesh and acted like a small fence that would break the embers into small pieces. Smaller embers were more likely to burn out than larger pieces. As fancier boats were built, the fluting became more ornamental and eventually came to be considered an essential decorative element of the smokestack. Those vessels with the fancy smokestacks and decorative flutes became known as high-falutin’ boats.”

  

His explanation for the word highfalutin makes sense. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for that word says it is of uncertain origin, perhaps formed within English by compounding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I asked myself if steam locomotives with high stacks also had flutes. As shown above, the famous Rocket built by Robert Stephenson (that won a competition known as the Rainhill trials in October 1829) had a set of flutes. I remembered seeing a replica at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan some time before 1984.

 

The drawing of the steamboat Ouachita came from page 390 of the 1895 book American Steam Vessels by Samuel Ward Stanton, found at the Internet Archive. A drawing of Stephenson’s Rocket came from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

Toastmasters International’s President, Margaret Page, resigned on May 17, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 17, 2022 I received an email titled Important leadership update stating that the President of Toastmasters International, Margaret Page, had resigned and thus now was toast. That email showed up at Reddit, and it described how:

 

“…a complaint was received following an incident at a District event where International President Margaret Page was a speaker. International President Page gave a speech that included statements about people of African descent and African Americans that were racially and culturally inaccurate, insensitive, stereotypical, and offensive.”

 

So far there has not been a news release from Toastmasters posted at their media center, like the one on September 8, 2021 titled British Columbia entrepreneur named Toastmasters International President. She also had been profiled in an article by Shannon Dewey in the September 2021 issue of Toastmaster, titled Meet Margaret Page, DTM.

 

There is a blog post by Diane Windingland at VirtualSpeechCoach on May 18, 2022 titled Speakers beware: Unconscious bias in your presentations. On May 17, 2022 I blogged about Fooling ourselves – biases in decision making by experts.

The image of toasted bread was adapted from this one at the National Cancer Institute.

  

An endorsement from Donald J. Trump wasn’t a magic bullet to Janice McGeachin’s campaign for Governor in the Idaho Republican primary yesterday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Governor Brad Little got 52.8% of the Republican primary votes versus just 32.3% for Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin. Back on November 9, 2021 at his web site site Trump had endorsed her and said:

 

“Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin has been a true supporter of MAGA since the very beginning. She is brave and not afraid to stand up for the issues that matter most to the people of Idaho, a beautiful State that I won by 30.8%. Janice is great on Election Integrity, will always fight for strong Borders, our cherished Second Amendment, American Manufacturing, School Choice, and our wonderful and hardworking FARMERS. I am giving Janice McGeachin my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Idaho. She will make a fantastic Governor, and will never let you down!”

 

Janice probably thought she would get a nice big Trump rally either in Idaho Falls or Nampa, but there was nothing further about the Idaho primary from The Donald until May 14, 2022 when he instead cluelessly said about Russ Fulcher (who was running unopposed, and needed no endorsement):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Congressman Russ Fulcher is an outstanding Representative for the people of Idaho’s 1st Congressional District! Last year, Russ was diagnosed with cancer, but in less than 6 months, he defeated it. With that same Warrior Spirit, Russ will never stop fighting and winning for you. Russ is Strong on the Border, Supports our Military and Vets, Defends the Second Amendment, and Protects and Upholds our American Values. Russ Fulcher has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

 

An article by Ryan Bort at Rolling Stone on May 18, 2022 crowed that Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate gets trounced by over 20 points.

The 356 Winchester image came from Wikimedia Commons, as did a cartoon of a speaker.

 

Fooling ourselves – biases in decision making by experts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an extremely interesting article by Itiel E. Dror titled Cognitive and Human Factors in Expert Decision Making: Six Fallacies and the Eight Sources of Bias which appeared in Analytical Chemistry magazine on June 8, 2020 pages 7998 to 8004. You can download a .pdf file of it. I have shown those eight sources of bias (above) via a ladder rather than the pyramid he used. (On May 25, 2018 I blogged about Cognitive biases and the frequency illusion).

 

I found that Analytical Chemistry article via a search that began by reading an article by Douglass Starr titled The Bias Hunter on pages 686 to 690 in the May 13, 2022 issue of Science magazine. That led me to look at PubMed Central for articles by Dror, where I found a recent article by Adele Quigley-McBride et al in Forensic Science International: Synergy on February 20, 2022 titled A practical tool for information management in forensic decisions: Using Linear Sequential Unmasking-Expanded [LUS-E] in casework.

 

A recent example of bias was discussed by Madison Dapcevich in an article at Snopes on May 11, 2022 titled Does this NASA photo show a ‘portal’ and ‘wall’ on Mars? That 11” wide by 17” high doorway is an example of pareidolia, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as:

 

“the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern”

 

There are three rules for writing a speech - but no one really knows what they are

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been reading Anna Quindlen’s 2022 book, Write for Your Life. A section starting on page 169 is titled Conjugate. On page 182 she says:

 

“Or there’s this observation, most often credited to W. Somerset Maugham: ‘There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.’  “

 

The she remarks that her piece of direction to everyone who wants to write is just to put your butt in a chair, and write - a word, then another, and another after that.

 

I think similar advice (the tongue-in cheek title for this blog post) is all we can say about speechwriting. An article by Sydne Saccone at LinkedIn Pulse on April 21, 2021 titled My last piano lesson instead repeated, via paragraph titles, the tired Three Rules cliché:

 

Tell them what you’re going to tell [them], Tell them, Then tell them what you told them

 

That alleged W. Somerset Maugham (1874 to 1965) quote about writing a novel has a very curious history. At Quote Investigator on May 6, 2013 there is an article by Garson O’Toole titled There Are Three Rules for the Writing of a Novel. He says it first posthumously (and suspiciously) appeared in 1977 in a book by Ralph Daigh titled Maybe You Should Write A Book. I found it showed up later on page 220 in a 2006 book by R. Keith Sawyer titled Explaining Creativity.  Mr. Sawyer said he got it from a 1996 book by Robert Byrne titled The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, where it is quotation number 1,764 (also in the 1982 edition).

 

The three columns were adapted from a drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Do men and women get equally nervous when asked to speak in public?

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Forbes on May 11, 2022 there is an article by Diana Booher titled Why public speaking skills are critical - and how to avoid 5 big mistakes women make. The five mistakes are:

 

Jerking, jabbing gestures from the wrists or elbows

Speaking too softly

Standing rigidly

Speaking too fast

Ending sentences with a rising intonation

 

But first she discusses another topic under the heading Do men and women equally get nervous when asked to speak publicly? Her answer (based on experience as a presentation coach for more than three decades) is that both men and women are equally affected. I don’t think so. There is an article by Peter Moore at YouGov on March 27, 2014 titled Argh! Snakes! America’s Top Phobias Revealed. I blogged about it on April 2, 2014 in a post titled YouGov survey of U.S. Adults found they were most commonly very afraid of snakes, heights, public speaking, spiders, and being closed in a small space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Moore reports results from a survey (1000 adults) of fears at four levels, including one shown above - for public speaking. First let’s look at percentages for Very afraid + A little afraid. For the Total there were 56%, for Women there were 62% and for Men there were 49%. So, significantly more women than men were afraid.

 

Another way to look at those results is via a Fear Score, calculated as:

 

Fear Score = [4x(% for Very Afraid) + 3x(% for A little Afraid)

            +2x(% for Not really Afraid) + 1x(% for Not afraid at all)]    

 

For the Total the Fear Score is 2.55 (just above the 2.5 middle for the scale), for Women it is 2.70, and for Men it is 2.36. So on average women were more afraid of speaking than men were. That also was the case for students, as I blogged about on April 14, 2022 in another post titled Fear of public speaking in female and male students at the University of Karachi.

 

Using props to make your presentation memorable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A month ago, on April 11, 2022, at SketchBubble there is a good article by Ashish Arora titled Make your presentation memorable using props. He shows rather than tells - by using five YouTube videos – two from Toastmasters World Championship speeches and three from TED talks.

 

Back on October 1, 2021 I blogged about Inexpensive inflatable props for speeches. After that, I did a speech on that topic at Pioneer Toastmasters Club. I began with the inflatable microphone shown above deflated and in my shirt pocket. I took it out and blew it up with five breaths. Then I made it a lavalier mic by putting the handle through a twine loop on my shirt, and continued by pulling a (folded) inflatable electric guitar out of a bag.

 

Dividing your work day into four quadrants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an article by Stephanie Vozza at Fast Company on April 27, 2022 titled How to use ‘daily quadrants’ to get more done each day. She referred to advice from productivity expert Donna McGeorge. Donna advised that you should use the first two hours of your eight-hour workday for high-intensity, high impact work. The second two hours are for high-intensity, low impact work. And, after lunch, the third two hours are for low-intensity, low impact work. Finally, the fourth two hours are for high-intensity, low impact work. As shown above, we can display her advice visually via a 2x2 table, where we start at the upper right and then go around clockwise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on July 3, 2020 I blogged about Is that 2x2 graphic a table, a chart, or a matrix? Should the axis go from left to right, or right to left? As shown above (via a color version rather than her gray scale one), in the last chapter of her most recent book, The 1 Day Refund, Donna displays her advice using a horizontal axis for Impact with High at the left. She says that:

 

“Our body clocks are designed for greater mental agility in the morning and more physical dexterity in the afternoon. This means thinking about when you do something is as important as thinking about what you do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donna assumes that you are a morning person – what Wikipedia terms a Lark. If instead you are an evening person, then her advice on what to do when might not be helpful. As shown above in another 2x2 table, the first two hours should be used for for low-intensity, low impact work. High-intensity, high impact work only should come in the fourth two hours.   

 

Who popularized the word glossophobia? What is a better Plain English alternative?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To me, the twentieth-century compound word glossophobia (for public speaking fear) is a pseudo-technical term intended to impress rather than inform. In Greek the phobia suffix just means a fear, but in English phobia has a different narrower meaning for psychologists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I discussed previously, a phobia has three additional criteria shown above via a Venn diagram from a blog post on December 8, 2019 titled Toastmasters press release confuses a fear of public speaking with a social phobia. The more severe form might better be termed either public speaking phobia or public speaking anxiety disorder.

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines glossophobia just as fear of public speaking. It says the first known use was in 1964.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, the Ngram Viewer at Google Books shows use of the word only taking off after 1970. My searches in Google books found references to it as just a fear of speaking. The first was in the 1931 book by Lee Edward Travis titled Speech Pathology: A Dynamic Neurological Treatment of Normal Speech and Speech Deviations. It says:

 

“Lalophobia – Morbid or extreme dislike of speaking. Synonym: glossophobia”

 

The second Google Books reference was to a 1947 book by S. Stephenson Smith titled How to Double Your Vocabulary. Chapter VI on page 89 is titled 100 Will Get You 5000. It has glossophobia defined as fear of speaking - in a list of twenty phobias taken from the Psychoanalyst’s Repertory. A second edition of that book appeared in 1964, so maybe Smith should get the blame for popularizing glossophobia. And perhaps it is where Merriam-Webster found the word.    

 

An article by Barbara Kendall at EscorpionAtl titled What can trigger glossophobia? says that term was first used by Alexander Luria (a Soviet neuropsychologist) in 1941 to describe the fear of speaking in public.

 

Stage fright is a broader Plain English term for performance anxiety. Sarah Solovitch has an article at Salon on June 21, 2015 titled “Stage fright”: Mark Twain coined the term and gave Tom Sawyer a bad case of it. That phrase came from his 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

 

 A narrower term, speech fright, first appeared in an article at the British Medical Journal on June 5, 1909. It pops up occasionally, but never has really caught on as a Plain English description for the fear of public speaking.  

 

The image was adapted from a March 5, 1913 Puck magazine page at the Library of Congress.  

 

Air Force Reserve C-130 planes are backup air tankers for wildfire readiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topics for speeches are all around you. We live near the airport in Boise. The past few days I could both see and hear dark-gray four-engine C-130 Hercules assault-transport planes flying low overhead. What is happening is described in an article by Erin Banks Rusby at the Idaho Press and KTVB on May 1, 2022 titled MAFFS training as part of local and regional wildfire-readiness efforts.

 

MAFFS is the acronym for a Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System that can slide inside a C-130 and be used to drop 3,000 gallons of fire retardant. Some Air Force Reserve units have them. These planes will be called when needed to augment the commercial air tanker fleet. On August 15, 2015 I blogged about Fighting wildland fires: Hotshots, helicopters, and whatever else it takes.

 

The 2007 image of a C-130 with an earlier version of MAFFS is from Wikimedia Commons.