Could My HighFog Index Be the Cause of Misunderstanding?

From what I remember when i found the original script for calculating fog indexes in BASIC years ago, fog index calculators determine the grade level the author writes at.

According to my research, the fog index for school teachers is Grade 5. Yes, teachers are taught on how to effectively write so as to be understood by a 10-year-old. So I checked shaw dot ca's webpages, and they all rate Grade 11.

If you need to confirm of a website is beyond your reading comprehension - uses big words and phrases - then try out www dot readability dot info !

I am not going to post a link because it's too valuable a link to let the spambots get ahold of to try to get into the server.

I will post the readability results of Gandhara dot blogspot dot com:

Readability report for http://gandhara.blogspot.com 
readability grades:
Kincaid: 9.2
ARI: 10.0
Coleman-Liau: 11.2
Flesch Index: 64.1
Fog Index: 12.5
Lix: 42.9 = school year 7
SMOG-Grading: 11.3
sentence info:
19581 characters
4278 words, average length 4.58 characters = 1.45 syllables
217 sentences, average length 19.7 words
48% (106) short sentences (at most 15 words)
16% (35) long sentences (at least 30 words)
16 paragraphs, average length 13.6 sentences
2% (6) questions
48% (106) passive sentences
longest sent 156 wds at sent 215; shortest sent 1 wds at sent 39
word usage:
verb types:
to be (145) auxiliary (51) 
types as % of total:
conjunctions 6(242) pronouns 7(288) prepositions 11(490)
nominalizations 1(47)
sentence beginnings:
pronoun (29) interrogative pronoun (6) article (16)
subordinating conjunction (20) conjunction (4) preposition (14)

Here's a list of Fog Indexes for various websites:

www dot bell dot ca:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 6.4
ARI: 8.4
Coleman-Liau: 13.7
Flesch Index: 71.4
Fog Index: 9.3
Lix: 33.4 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 9.3

www dot shaw dot ca:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 10.9
ARI: 16.2
Coleman-Liau: 19.2
Flesch Index: 51.3
Fog Index: 15.2
Lix: 64.5 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 13.4

gettingtothegate dot com
(The feminist women's lobby group trying to get more women into government):

readability grades:
Kincaid: 8.2
ARI: 9.9
Coleman-Liau: 11.7
Flesch Index: 69.8
Fog Index: 11.3
Lix: 36.4 = school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 10.3

Note: My guess is this website was written by a teacher.

andreareimer dot typepad dot com
(Andrea Reimer is the VSB school teacher who parlayed her network of university friends into stepping up in the Green Party of BC hierarchy, to the point where she's applying Green politicking to Vancouver city council):

Readability grades:
Kincaid: 10.5
ARI: 12.1
Coleman-Liau: 10.1
Flesch Index: 65.1
Fog Index: 13.7
Lix: 45.4 = school year 8
SMOG-Grading: 11.2

Hmmm, she write one grade level about me! I bet people misunderstand her more than they do me!

Now a look at our fine post-second educational institutions starting with UBC:

www dot ubc dot ca:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 7.6
ARI: 9.0
Coleman-Liau: 13.0
Flesch Index: 67.1
Fog Index: 10.9
Lix: 40.7 = school year 6
SMOG-Grading: 10.4

Obviously written by a teacher.

www dot sfu ca matches Andrea's Grade 8 score:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 8.2
ARI: 9.0
Coleman-Liau: 10.2
Flesch Index: 70.5
Fog Index: 11.4
Lix: 44.6 = school year 8
SMOG-Grading: 10.3

Comment: My guess is, she gradated from SFU since the scores are so similar.

www dot kwantlen dot ca is not surprise, considering how terse the website is:

Readability grades:
Kincaid: 1.5
ARI: 2.1
Coleman-Liau: 9.6
Flesch Index: 96.1
Fog Index: 5.7
Lix: 29.6 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 6.9

So I decided to check another webpage in the kwantlen dot ca domain.

This is the score for the testimonials offered by faculty at Kwantlen (www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw faculty dot html):

readability grades:
Kincaid: 22.1
ARI: 28.0
Coleman-Liau: 15.8
Flesch Index: 22.6
Fog Index: 24.4
Lix: 84.5 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 16.5

Being mostly masters grads, they naturally use a lot of big words and score above Grade 11, even better than the shaw dot ca webmaster, who might have graduated at an Albertan university.

Student testimonies (www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw students dot html) scored the following:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 22.0
ARI: 27.8
Coleman-Liau: 14.4
Flesch Index: 26.9
Fog Index: 24.6
Lix: 81.5 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 16.1

Comment: Not as high as the teachers, but this leads me to suspect that the webmaster chose, in both cases, the most complex sentences to quote from both groups.

Just to make sure that it's the webmaster's editing that is making these testimonials so complex, I checked out the alumni's page to see if any quotes from teachers lowered the scores like it did the students'.

www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw alumni dot html:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 13.5
ARI: 17.1
Coleman-Liau: 12.9
Flesch Index: 53.8
Fog Index: 16.0
Lix: 57.1 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 12.1

It looks like the alumnis, no longer hard-pressed to impress everyone like their former teachers and fellow students, scored more than 25 points lower on the Lix grade, which is still higher than Grade 11 but is dropping back to normal.

University of Calgary's webpage (www dot ucalgary dot ca) scores at around Grade 11:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 12.1
ARI: 14.4
Coleman-Liau: 14.8
Flesch Index: 48.7
Fog Index: 15.3
Lix: 55.1 = school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 13.2

Comment: But Edmonton (www dot ualberta dot ca) scored higher, which means that the Shaw webmaster is a University of Alberta university grad surrounded by call centre staff who graduated from University of Calgary:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 34.4
ARI: 43.9
Coleman-Liau: 18.4
Flesch Index: -16.1
Fog Index: 38.3
Lix: 123.4 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 24.2

Comment: University of Alberta has the highest ratings so far, and that's the first time I've seen the Flesch Index go negative! And using by the grades, I've calculated that the Shaw webmaster may have networked with at least six of the call centre staff.

Now on to the government of bc:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 17.4
ARI: 22.2
Coleman-Liau: 16.4
Flesch Index: 34.0
Fog Index: 20.6
Lix: 74.5 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 16.0

www dot uvic dot ca scores:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 12.4
ARI: 15.5
Coleman-Liau: 15.6
Flesch Index: 48.2
Fog Index: 16.0
Lix: 58.4 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 13.8

The government of Canada (www dot gc dot ca slash-fw home dot html) scores in the same range

readability grades:
Kincaid: 12.6
ARI: 17.1
Coleman-Liau: 16.2
Flesch Index: 50.4
Fog Index: 16.4
Lix: 57.4 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 13.8

Checking www dot psac dot ca reveals similarities with student activists:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 8.2
ARI: 11.9
Coleman-Liau: 16.3
Flesch Index: 63.9
Fog Index: 10.8
Lix: 48.9 = school year 9
SMOG-Grading: 10.3

The student left's website of choice for some (www dot resist dot ca) show:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 11.2
ARI: 12.6
Coleman-Liau: 12.4
Flesch Index: 55.8
Fog Index: 14.6
Lix: 49.2 = school year 9
SMOG-Grading: 12.7

The activist newsfeed mostlywater dot org has pretty much the same level:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 11.8
ARI: 13.9
Coleman-Liau: 12.4
Flesch Index: 56.3
Fog Index: 15.1
Lix: 50.7 = school year 9
SMOG-Grading: 12.7

Comment: This leads me to suspect that the webmasters of both sites have the same background, or have the same newsource.

Anarchist dot com however gives low grades, which leads me to suspect the webmaster has learned to keep it simple.

readability grades:
Kincaid: 6.4
ARI: 6.6
Coleman-Liau: 9.9
Flesch Index: 76.4
Fog Index: 9.5
Lix: 33.8 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 9.3

Since the scores for the psac website showed a strong tie with the student activist movement, I thought I'd find a site that caters to white collars. So I checked out the Canadian Venture Capitalist Association:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 13.9
ARI: 16.7
Coleman-Liau: 16.9
Flesch Index: 38.1
Fog Index: 17.8
Lix: 62.0 = higher than school year 11
SMOG-Grading: 15.2

Comment: This may indicate the webmaster is a university grad.

So I checked www dot garage dot com:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 8.5
ARI: 10.8
Coleman-Liau: 16.8
Flesch Index: 55.7
Fog Index: 11.7
Lix: 48.3 = school year 9
SMOG-Grading: 10.9

Finally, I peeked at www dot whitehouse dot gov and got this:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 12.4
ARI: 14.9
Coleman-Liau: 13.7
Flesch Index: 51.2
Fog Index: 15.9
Lix: 52.7 = school year 10
SMOG-Grading: 13.5

Better Societies Through Psychiatric Profiling?

Diagnostic labels define what limits of difference society can tolerate. Whenever a culture decides that it will define a set of behaviors as "sick" rather than "immoral" or unwitting, it is enacting a social value that favors illness over the view that such destructive or unusual behavior is volitional. Armed with this view of behavior as illness, we can justify forced hospitalization, prison, or "protective care."

...

The identification of psychiatric disorders always involves a social judgment and often implies a political agenda as well. The definition that behavior constitutes a "problem" for clinical purposes hinges both on what society desires -- a social judgment -- and what is disruptive of the political order and values -- the political agenda. It is less concerned with what is true than with what values it supports and maintains...
-- pp.84-5, L.E. Beutler, B. Bongar & J.N. Shulkin in Am I Crazy, Or Is It My Shrink? How to Get The Help You Need

In short, psychiatric diagnoses address the social mores and political agenda of a society. Their purpose is to label socially inappropriate behaviors in a person as "illness" rather than as "sin".

Indeed, this is but "thought control" where the diagnosis of certain unacceptable behaviors are viewed by the mental health industry as "sick" and in need of medication rather than as merely "immoral" and unwitting, and in need of salvation.

By defining such behaviors as "sick" rather than "immoral" and unwitting, the political agenda of that society is maintained. By maintaining this "status quo", the people in power are thus able to stay in power through social control.

Thus, through clever means of social control, the mentally ill are denied access to political power through the use of forced hospitalization, prison, and "protective care".

But that's all changing today. One-by-one, through education and activism, global fear of psychosis is being eradicated.

Slowly, one by one they are being politically empowered through social activism on the grassroots level.

For a depressed world leader is able to see the world realistically. Her judgment may be tempered by another world leader in a wheelchair, but together they can change the world.

And so too can you.