Parvum Opus is early and a bit briefer this week because I'll be away for several days at our retreat with Bernadette Roberts.

COUCH TUBER

Per TV:

(!) An annual jazz fest in New Orleans took place but was reduced to "two fewer stages and 100 less performers than before." As you know, we use "fewer" to compare things that can be counted and "less" for things that can't be counted but must be measured, or that usually are not counted (e.g. hair); for example, less sugar means fewer calories. People commonly use "less" instead of "fewer" ~ incorrectly ~ and sometimes "fewer" may feel a bit strained to some speakers. But to mix them in the same sentence simply demonstrates confusion.

(!) Susannah Meadows of Newsweek, talking about a legal case in the news, could not get through a sentence without saying kind of and sort of once or even twice in every sentence. We do not expect gravitas from a journalist, but we also don't expect them to sound like mallteens. Say it like you mean it, Susannah.

(!) A convicted criminal ~ one of those female teachers who'd had sex with her juvenile students ~ referred to her crime as "inappropriate acts of my past." "Inappropriate acts" sounds like a breach of etiquette rather than a crime (much less a sin). Which leads to the question of what to call illegal immigrants. The political opportunists are insisting that this is an insult, that they are not criminals. A criminal is someone who breaks a law, but of course we do distinguish between types of crimes, and also between career criminals and others. I've been a criminal. Does the word still apply if it wasn't too serious and you don't get caught and it was a while back? People who jumped the border and haven't done the paperwork are continuing in that particular crime. "Ilegal aliens" is even more offensive, though it's the technically or legally correct term. So now they're being called undocumented workers, or just plain immigrants even if they're not going through the legal procedures required of other immigrants, the way your ancestors did. Geraldo Rivera calls them honored guests.

PAST TENSE PLEASE

One of the lines of the new Mexican version of the United States national anthem ~ which is not merely a translation but adds new words ~ goes like this (in translation from the Spanish):

My people keep fighting.

It's time to break the chains.

If they are in chains in the United States, why do millions risk death to come here? Maybe I misunderstand. Maybe it means they were in chains in Mexico, the chains of poverty and lack of opportunity ~ and yes, racism in Mexico; it's not the Mexicans with European blood who are unable to make a living and are sneaking over the border ~ but the writer got confused and meant to use the past tense. In the present tense, they seem to be saying that "chains" are anything that inconveniences you or displeases you, such as the legal forms of immigration, or the fact that non-citizens can't vote in U.S. elections. I think they may be able to enlist in the U.S. armed forces, though. Perhaps reinstituting the draft would be a way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

Boston's North End neighborhood has long been a neighborhood of Italian immigrants. Every summer, they have lovely religious street festivals just about every weekend: Saint Jude, Saint Rocco, the Fisherman's Feast, and so on. Yuppies who've bought condos in the North End sometimes complain about these customs. In the ancient cycle of economic change and ethnic shifts, the newcomers tend to rudely if not violently shove people around in their own homes if they want that space. This is of course the argument about the U.S.: we did it to the Indians, therefore the present (i.e. victorious) government has no legal claims.

Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that the United States is unique in that it is not a country united by race or ethnicity, but by ideas, and by language. Despite our flawed history (and whose is not?), destroy those ideas and the laws ("overthrow by force or violence"), and this unique creation may cease to be the desirable haven it has become for so many. Why aren't those folks protesting the Mexican government?

ONLINE NEWS

From a local online news source that always seems to be written by people who want to be journalists:

(!) "[Rapper] T.I., whose given name is Tip Harris..." That's not his given name. His given name is Tip, or perhaps Tip is a nickname for his given name (or possibly his Christian name). His family or surname is Harris.

(!) "Cinco de Mayo: Determine the follies from truth in the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo." The writer meant "distinguish," not "determine".

BUZZARD BAPTIST

In a review of Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build The Perfect Instrument (4/24/06 issue of The Weekly Standard), Henderson is quoted as calling himself a "Buzzard Baptist," meaning "his church attendance is mostly restricted to attending funerals."

MISPHILES

Dave DaBee says maybe the opposite of phile is misphile.

POLITICAL STRATEGY

General observation: While some people are more than hinting that the U.S. should step in and stop the genocide in Darfur (and everywhere else in the world), I suspect they are some of the same people who object to our intervention in Iraq. One girl, for instance, wrote to the local newspaper and said we should all be ashamed because Americans don't know or care about this particular carnage. They might revert to their pacifist principles if some Darfurians attacked us here in the U.S., explaining to us why we provoked them and so on. Wait ~ maybe that's a way to get us into Darfur. The good Darfurians whose families are being slaughtered could stage a small fake attack in Manhattan (remember the movie The Mouse that Roared?), and then we'd light out for Darfur and save them. Or at least their friends and relatives; they'd be toast, but it would be a worthy sacrifice. (But why don't the Europeans step in there anyway? They're closer.)

SOMETHING NEW! Check out the new "I Eat Dead Things" T-shirts for dogs and people, and the Protestant Work Ethic items in the Parvum Opus CafePress shop, plus a new Parvum Opus mouse pad! Now you can buy neat products with the Parvum Opus / KeithOps Catti logo at CafePress.com/parvumopus. Don't see exactly what you want? Ask me.

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