PARVUM OPUS

 

Number 228

May 31, 2007

______________________________________________

 

 

GOKMOP'S CRUFTY BITS FOR YOUR SALAD

 

In the "Who are we to judge?" category: A blog called Gokmops' Crufty Bits reviewed the movie The Last King of Scotland about Idi Amin. This blog's masthead is:

 

People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.

- Lemony Snicket

 

Speaking of chopped ~ anyway, even if Idi Amin had some good qualities, does it matter? It's like saying you're perfectly healthy except for that giant hole in your head.

 

Speaking of dictators, my Venezuelan students are upset at Hugo Chavez's latest coup, the shutting down of a TV station that aired criticism of his regime. Think Danny Glover is going to give back the pile of money Chavez gave him to make some movies?

 

REAL IMPACT

 

The word impact as a verb has long been considered bad usage, as it suggested things like an impacted tooth or an impacted colon, where things are driven into another surface or object. But since it was OK to say "have an impact on something", the meaning of the verb impact drifted. I still prefer to use "to have an effect" or "to affect" or some other word. But when I heard this on a TV report about a fighter pilot, frankly, I was puzzled: The bullets impacted the left engine.

 

Because news reports are so often badly written and imprecise, at first I thought the reporter simply meant that the bullets had some damaging effect on the engine. But then I thought, what if he was using the word correctly? The bullets lodged in the engine. I'll never know. The loss of precision in language leads to us not knowing exactly what people mean.

 

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

 

A dairy around here used to advertise its milk: Good as most; better than some. I like the modesty. I'd buy their stuff.

 

ALMOST WHOLLY WRONG WORD, BATMAN!

 

Someone wrote Wholly Spirit, a mistake for Holy Spirit. Well, it could work in a way, except that it's wrong, and the writer didn't intend to be clever; English is the writer's second language. However, there was a book by Joseph Goldbrunner called Holiness Is Wholeness; and, the etymology is sound. Holy, whole, heal, all come from the same root.

 

THE POETRY CORNER

 

Another Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate) poem on YouTube: Forgetfulness. Reminds me of the concept of Zen unlearning (though it's not exactly the same thing).

 

NATIVE TONGUES

 

Check this satirical response to the Pew Research survey showing that a large number (25%, maybe 300,000) of young Muslims in the United States think suicide bombing might be a good thing:

 

            Midwest Lutherans Largely Reject Violence

The Pew Research survey, conducted May 13-19, queried nearly 2,500 randomly selected Lutherans at flea markets and convenience stores across the Midwest. Interviews were conducted in High Plains Twang, Great Lakes Nasal and Flat Ohio Valley Bland.

 

I think I've got the Flat Ohio Valley Bland down. The Ohio River Valley accent is the sort of generic American heard on TV all the time.

 

By the way, I just found a potentially useful newly minted word: dhimmicrat. Dhimmi is the Arabic word for a non-Muslim living under the enforced system of inferior social, economic, and political status in Muslim lands, practiced wherever Sharia is the law since the time of Mohammed. A dhimmicrat is someone in the U.S. who talks and walks like a dhimmi, someone who accepts the authority of the Muslims.

 

The Wikipedia article on dhimmitude is more positive about it than the actual history and even current news reports reveal.  F'rinstance, a recent news story about a brawl in a Queens school boys' room reported that one kid forcibly cut off the other kid's long hair. The boy with long hair is a Sikh, who are required to let their hair grow. News stories did not say the barber was a Muslim, just that he's of "Pakistani descent" (I almost wrote "dissent"). The Associated Press report was subheaded, "Hate crime alleged since Sikh faith calls for men to wear hair long" but did not explain who made the allegation; the county DA? I don't like the concept of hate crime, since it implies that the thought behind the crime makes one crime worse than another. Law is for actions, not thoughts. Although I can guess what the Pakistani boy had in his mind, I wouldn't want his lawyers to say it wasn't really hate, it was just a boyish tussle, or even that it was his right to practice his religion's belief in dhimmitude. Also, the designation "hate crime" begs for other crimes to be classified as ~ what? Love crimes? I think not. Crimes for financial gain? Crimes of wanting to get high on controlled substances?

 

MAKE MINE RARE

 

Know what a "seared conscience" is? It's a conscience that has become insensitive, like when a piece of meat is seared on the grill, sealing it.

 

ACADEMIC WISH LIST

 

Bill R. sent a list culled from the forums (I tried to type the Latin plural as Bill did but my spellchecker won't let me and I don't want to alter it now and have to worry about missing "for a" in the future) of The Chronicle of Higher Education, what professors would like to say to students but don't. I'm passing on just a few.

 

///  Do you people have any idea how dumbed-down this is already?

///  Each exclamation point in your paper will cost you 1 point. Each use of the word awesome will cost you 1 point.

///  Good literature possesses immeasurable cultural value, whether or not you can recognize it or benefit from it. The problem is that literacy above the 8th grade level requires intellectual talent that many of you simply don't have.

///  You! Out of the gene pool!

 

I once had an English professor who said she didn't want anyone to use the phrase "the human condition". When I was an instructor, I got a little tired of sports metaphors, as in "Life is like a football game." Today, many students are personally offended if you tell them that basic grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors will cost them, as if you're denigrating their personal style choices.

 

NITS AND BUGS

 

Alert reader Dave DaBee astutely noted: I find myself marveling at the probable strong similarity of "nitpicking" and "debugging."

 

PASS ON THESE WORDS

 

PC Magazine says these are the most commonly used passwords, so don't use them. Hackers have them memorized.

 

password

123456

qwerty

abc123

letmein

monkey

myspace 1

password 1

blink182

(your first name)

 

I don't get blink182. I think I've used password, but only to sign in at a web site I wanted to use temporarily. If you follow the link above, you can find other links to articles giving you advice on updating your passwords.

 

By the way, did you notice that "pass on these words" can mean either leave them alone, or pass them along to someone else?

 

THANX

 

This year for the first time I've started to receive small commissions in the form of gift certificates from Amazon. This means that someone is using my newsletter link to Amazon to buy books, and I get a cut. I do appreciate it, whoever you are!

 

 

______________________________________________

 

Link here to look for books on Amazon.com!

 

 

 

 

 

Parvum Opus CafePress shop: New: "I am here"; "Someone went to Heaven and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" T-shirts; "I eat dead things" doggy shirt and BBQ apron; Parvum Opus mouse pad; and more!

 

HUR HERALD

Parvum Opus is now being carried by the Hur Herald, a web newspaper from Calhoun County, West Virginia. See Editor Bob Weaver's interview with me (February 10, 2007 entry), and the PO every week in Columns.

 

NEW! SHORT ORDER

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.

 

GET COMFORTABLE! For women who get massage or chiropractic treatment, who sleep on their stomachs, or have implants, try Rhonda's original Breast Cushion to take the pressure off. Go to www.keithops.us/cushion.

 

WHEN SONNY GETS BLUE! Check out the video clips of Sonny Robertson and the Howard Street Blues Band at www.sonnyrobertson.com and www.youtube.com/rondaria, with his new original song, "A Different Shade of Blue".

 

SEARCH IT OUT ON AMAZON : It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2

 

The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is not composed of atoms, but stories. The physicist Werner Heisenberg said the universe is not made of matter, but music.

 

NEED SOMEONE TO ORGANIZE A MEETING OR CONFERENCE? CALL KEITHOPS.

 

Go to Babelfish to translate this page into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish!

 

Parvum Opus is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Back issues may be found at http://www.keithops.us/. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please reply with "unsubscribe," "quit," "enough," or something like that in the subject line, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2007. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.