McCarty Low D Flute Review

[jemtheflute]

Ouch you two...just ouch. I'm not sure I see the difference between faith supporting the truth of a statement and lack of faith supporting the untruth of a statement.

Not a relevant perspective: more to the point is that anyone "selling" or proselytising any "faith" is, de natura, fundamentally suspect/unworthy of trust. That is not necessarily (though it might be) a comment on the "faith" in question or its tenets or its non-evangelical particpants, just on the human activity promoting it. The faith might be "true", I might conceivably even share it (well, maybe not) or at least respect its tenets, but I still wouldn't trust an evangelist.

[Jayhawk]

David,

enlighten me then (apparent my logic class didn't cover this properly). I actually agree with part of your statement, "if you trust anybody becasue of a proposed faith"...although I would amend "faith" to "belief system". I know as many rabid athiests and humanists as I do religous folks, and I've known some of each camp to be less than trustworthy. However, it's not their belief that makes them trustworthy or not trustworthy, but rather my experience with the veracity of their statements and actions. That's the point I was trying to make.

Am I missing something?

A little civility goes a long way to make the world a better place. Both you and Jem could have simply said that his relgious profession isn't relevant to the issue at hand. Tossing out terms like "cult" and "snake oil salesman" are just as irrelevant. Playing to emotion cuts both ways.

Eric

[Nanohedron]

Ouch you two...just ouch. I'm not sure I see the difference between faith supporting the truth of a statement and lack of faith supporting the untruth of a statement.

Not a relevant perspective: more to the point is that anyone "selling" or proselytising any "faith" is, de natura, fundamentally suspect/unworthy of trust. That is not necessarily (though it might be) a comment on the "faith" in question or its tenets or its non-evangelical particpants, just on the human activity promoting it. The faith might be "true", I might conceivably even share it (well, maybe not) or at least respect its tenets, but I still wouldn't trust an evangelist.

Bearing in mind that a chaplain and an evangelist are not the same thing, by trade or emphasis. Just sayin'.

But perhaps we stray afield.

[Aanvil]

The whole thing still stinks of snake oil.

I'm with David.

[Doug_Tipple]

The whole thing still stinks of snake oil.

My wife is terrified of S-N-A-K-E-S. We only spell that word in our household, and we never watch "Nature" on PBS, because you just never know what you are going to see on the screen.

You would think that someone who was wanting to sell his hand-made flutes on the internet would take a more active interest in promoting his work on internet forums, wanting to comment and share photographs of his flute making process so that there wouldn't be a lingering question of his legitimacy. In the absence of such straightforward participation and transparency (a currently popular word), is there any wonder that many of us still have doubts in our minds after Don's personal visit with Eric McCarty?

[James_Alto]

It is a delicious turn of events for us all to have been wrong, and Mr. Alto correct. Though I still have many doubts.

Haha - elementary my dear Watson! Elementary!

The key to knowing ... is firstly, to have the moderator unlock the thread. No no no ... that's not quite it.

Well actually...the key to knowing .... it's okay to have doubts: Descartes starts off with these to make good of his own demons.

You'll understand - Voltaire was not mistaken in any of his acerbic critiques on his present day society, except insofar as he failed to tend to his own garden - the noumenal experience ... something which his predecessor Montaigne revered - not as some detached metaphysical or ethereal experience ...but in the everyday.

Jim Stone is correct when he comments that this thread, speaks more about us on the forum (as a group), more than it does about the flute. A mindset based on speculative function; being opinionated, dismissive or critical without evidence, is not the problem, as widespread as it is. It is part of a wider problem, and this kind of behaviour is rife (or even desirable) in social forums. It's not just flutes we'd be polarised over - it would be size of chicken eggs; whether beef tastes better than vegetarian foods: in short - that span of humanity, which reveals itself. It's not a problem about grasping symbolic logic....it's a problem about our fundamental human disposition. Only a few here even approach the problem of not knowing about the flute with anything like a healthy hermeneutic of suspicion.

Frankly I'm a bit embarrassed about the infamy I've caused by just responding to Othannen & Jem's request from another thread to comment on this flute. There's no need for people to be offensive or rude, so I hope the rest of the thread can refrain from this.

I posted it before on another thread on my cheap microphone test. This sounds nothing like the flute in real life - day 3, and I'm still trying to learn how to play it:

http://www.box.net/shared/qx2bl1tfii7ct3lyalzo

[Lars Larry Mór Mott]

This is what it sounds like to me

[James_Alto]

David Carradine??!!!

Haha. I wish I was worthy. He'd do me in with the 5 point pressure technique.

No no ..I'm a globophile. I heard this being played when I was working out in China for a year. It's a love lament by a girl for her boyfriend who dies of syphilis - I'm not sure, and the person teaching me was probably winding me up, but then, I'm easy to wind up

I

[Denny]

David was actually playing tunes

[Rob Sharer]

It is a delicious turn of events for us all to have been wrong, and Mr. Alto correct. Though I still have many doubts.

Haha - elementary my dear Watson! Elementary!

Yuk it up all you want, but you haven't proved jack about this flute. And if the hardware is made in Pakistan, then the flute is hardly a product of the USA.

I remain extremely suspicious that there were no completed instruments in the "flute shop", as well.



Rob

[Jayhawk]

Not having a flute on hand to play is rather, um, surprising. At the very least, it really makes you wonder if he's a flute player.

However, Rob...if a house is built in Kansas City, utilizing American labor, American lumber, but Chinese Drywall...isn't that house a product of the USA? A motor scooter made in Italy, with Italian parts except for hoses and air valves which come from China...isn't that an Italian made scooter? Don't tell my Vespa riding friends, or the US government, that those VIN numbers really ought to start with L instead of ZA.

Eric

[jim stone]

Just to clarify something. I'm an atheist, personally, but I've known chaplins who ministered to the dying (ministering
to the dying is the most important part of the phrase in my mind) and they were a reasonably honest lot.
You know, you talk to the dying and hold their hand and sometimes do it as they die. I do think it tends to select
for people who aren't much into dishonest scheming elsewhere in their lives. Of course you can minister to the dying and not believe anything spiritual, and that might be still better,
but I do think people who minister to the dying tend not to be much into cheating and lying when they aren't ministering to
the dying. Doesn't mean they are there to convert people, by the way, or preach to anyone. Just if you are in a hospital
and dying and you happen to be Lutheran, say, it's better for you that there be a Lutheran chaplin there. I did the laundry in Mother Theresa's Home For the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta,
and those folks struck me as honest enough.

The gentleman says that he isn't making much money selling instruments and that would seem to explain the
absence of a flute. Not much business, makes them as orders come in. I once contacted a board member who makes and sells
flutes and other instruments and asked if he would send me a flute to review. He said he didn't have one, hadn't for awhile. Not
so uncommon.

[Aanvil]

"Elementary"?

Alimentary I say.

[MTGuru]

Please ... As Nano hinted above, and I'll say explicitly, let's leave the religious speculation, commentary and polemics out of the discussion. First, because it's off-topic and prohibited. Second, because it's irrelevant.

Psychodonald reported to us what was reported to him, and that's perfectly fine. But drawing inferences from Mr. McCarty's religious affiliations and activities to the quality of his instrument or the honesty of his enterprise is as wildly speculative as anything imaginable. To apply Jim's own observation, it may say more about the speculator(s) than about the flutes in question, where the focus belongs.

Thanks.

[crookedtune]

Back on point, a simple question: Given what we know (and don't know) is anyone comfortable recommending a McCarty flute to a beginner over, say, a Tipple, Burns, Hammy, Forbes, etc....? Just askin'. I'm not, until I see evidence of a quality product.