PARVUM OPUS
Number 214
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It's been years since I've visited beautiful San Francisco. In the nineteenth century, there was an area in the city known as the Barbary Coast, a rough part of town where Gold Rush money crossed the palms of prostitutes, and various criminals operated. The name came from the Barbary Coast of North Africa, after the Berbers. This is where Barbary pirates came from, who were the reason the US Navy was founded. While Europe was paying tribute money to protect their navy, the early United States, and specifically Thomas Jefferson, decided to fight instead. See Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present by Michael Oren
The Barbary pirates also abducted quite a few white Europeans for slavery, thus "white slavery", which seems archaic now. I used to think it was a hysterical term referring to imagined abductions by swarthy or yellow races. Not so. Many Europeans were enslaved. Read about it in When Europeans Were Slaves by Robert Davis, professor of history at Ohio State University. Davis says that some white slaves returned home to preach against all slavery because of their own experiences.
Arizona State University requires sensitivity training for its resident hall assistants, who learn among other things that "dormitory" or "dorm" has negative connotations so they must say residence hall. Why? AZ must be a tough place. One trainee, Ryan Visconti, got himself in trouble when he objected to the role playing that cast everyone as a victim requiring sensitivity, except for white Christian males such as himself. Along these lines, after talking with someone who believes himself to be a total relativist concerning values, cultures, etc., it occurred to me that if all other cultures and values are just as good as ours (i.e. those of the United States), why aren't ours just as good as theirs, as he also suggested?
You may have heard the "news" story that Bush (repeating Senator Biden) insulted Barack Obama by calling him "articulate". Fred said the word "eloquent" wouldn't have created the same reaction. "Eloquent" goes beyond basic competence in self-expression. Since President Bush isn't always articulate himself, no doubt he humbly considered it a compliment.
Somewhere around ninth grade a teacher was trying to explain to us the difference between the Soviet Union and the United States. Their system is called communism. "And what is our system?" she asked. I raised my hand and said, "Capitalism?" Not that I understood anything about the subject, but I had heard the word. She snapped, "No! That's what they call us. This is a democracy." I was confused for years after that. Looking back, I really don't know if the teacher thought capitalism was a pejorative word, or was simply confused herself.
Heads up on what to now call those of your neighbors formerly known as Prince. I mean, formerly known as African-American, black, colored, or Negro: Debra Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners, was on the Stephen Colbert show to talk about why Barack Obama is not black. She says that "black" now means descended from American slaves, i.e. not Obama, who is "an African African-American." Born in Hawaii, Obama's mother was white and his father was from Africa. Colbert does a brilliant and hilarious interview, and suggests a new name for people like Obama might be nouveau black.
Also, according to one radio talk show phone caller, we ought to say "American of African ascension*". The names necessary to identify this group get longer and longer. However, you know this name won't cover Egyptians who came to America, for instance, or white Africans, so you have to work the color in somehow plus the slavery thing. When I was growing up, the goal was to see beyond people's superficial characteristics, and also to see that everyone in America had a chance to live and succeed on individual merits. All these name changes over the decades keep pounding on the race thing, though, and it is about color, which is why no one cares that I'm a "Scottish American".
* Note the switch from "descent" to "ascension", a nice way of saying people have improved, or their condition has improved. Do American blacks (sorry, I'm stuck with it) really want to imply that they're better than their African ancestors, or better off? Anyway, it begs the question, why do we refer to ourselves as descended from our ancestors? It may go back to the ancient sense of a hierarchical universe, in which everything comes down in an orderly way, in time, from what is higher, ultimately God. Along with this idea was the visualization of the earth as being below the heavens and so on.
You've probably heard the term "oreo" meaning a black person who's black on the inside but white on the inside, that is, someone who either "acts white" or secretly thinks like white people. And you know they all think alike. Likewise a coconut is someone who's brown on the outside, etc. A watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside, is a person who is active for environmental causes as a screen for other political activity. I'm sure there are more two-toned food insults. In any case, I came up with a very good new recipe using an Oreo crumb piecrust; if you're interested, I'll send it to you.
Gargalesis is the "hard tickling" sensation that probably occurs only in humans and primates, according to Wikipedia. Something I suspected but didn't know: research has shown that the human brain "distinguishes between sensations we create for ourselves and sensations others create for us." In other words, you can't really tickle yourself, at least not physically.
Bill R. said he's "not shot in the fanny" about some bad news, meaning he's not happy about it. Never heard that before. Is there where you get shot if you got good news and were happy about it?
||| vanewimsey wrote about Gatsby's green dock light: "Surely the green light is on Daisy's dock? -- The Literature Nazi." She or he (probably she) is quite right, it was Daisy's dock. And yet it seems more Gatsby's dock than Daisy's. But don't call me Shirley.
||| Several people reminded me that flack should be flak when referring to attack or shrapnel. Yes, but yourdictionary.com does give flack as a variant spelling of flak. Mike Sykes wrote:
Strange how 'c' seems to
creep in before 'k'. I've always been slightly annoyed by the French spelling
of 'steack'; now I see 'flack' where 'flak' is presumably more correct (short
for 'fliegerabwehrkanone' lit. 'aviator-defence-gun’). Though apparently
'flack' has been around for a few years now ~ shame!
After I sent my abjeckt apologies, he continued:
I might have added that
it's a typical German abbreviation ~ not quite an acronym (that would be 'fak',
viewing the bits as distinct words). the dreaded 'gestapo' is another ~ Geheime
Staatspolizei ~ Secret State Police
And, I added, "Nazi" or "Nazism" for Nationalsozialismus, and Mike replied:
Yes, of course!
Nationalsozialist. Though now I think about it, it actually derives from the
first 4 letters, the 'ti' having the same pronunciation as the German 'z' (not
the way Winston Churchill pronounced it! ~ 'narzi', to rhyme with 'karzy',
which happens to be somewhat coarse slang for a toilet, lavatory, bathroom,
comfort station, or whatever euphemism we happen to be using these days).
As for "steack", in English we do not add that "C" after a double vowel with a single-vowel pronunciation, at least I can't think of any examples. We have stack and stick and stuck, but steak and break and cloak.
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HUR HERALD
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2007 entry), and the PO in Columns.
Short Order is a new series of my short stories in 5
1/2" x 8 1/2" booklet format. The first two are available now for $5
each (includes mailing).
/// In Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn, a young
computer guy who dreams of becoming a big-time gambler sets up web sites for
his role model, a real big-time gambler, Stockyard Stan of Kansas City. But
when Carl comes up short on his gambling debts, he finds himself wearing
concrete boots in the middle of a Kansas cornfield. 26 pages.
/// Still Ridge is about what happens when the old-time moonshine business meets up with a predatory modern bottled water corporation. How far will Kate, a newcomer to the mountains, go to protect the water supply? 22 pages.
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