Number 73
In PO 48, I forwarded a message from my friend Frank about the lack of certain kinds of recognition for the soldiers currently in the non-war in Iraq. He just sent me a link about the new medals to be awarded to military personnel in the "global war on terrorism" or GWOT. Do you think the acronym GWOT will enter the language like WWI and WWII? Probably not. We still don't have WOD (war on drugs).
Frank also added:
My reserve co-workers are finally getting recognition. It took about a year from authorization, but they are getting GWOT medals. Still no war in Iraq, of course, but I guess GW decided the war on terror was real, albeit not declared by congress. Congress agreed to these medals as a solution to the complaints.
The operations named in the news item are Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Noble Eagle, which sound as if they were dreamed up by somebody with a fresh marketing degree. Would it be unfair to compare these names with, for example, "Overlord," the code name for the Normandy invasion of WWII? "Overlord" sounds appropriately aggressive, while "Enduring Freedom" provokes an automatic ironic twitch ~ enduring, huh? and what do you mean by freedom? I will not quibble with Noble Eagle, however.
Recently I bought some Goody body ache powders, an old fashioned form of medication, in this case aspirin and acetaminophen, packaged in a folded, not glued, square of paper. The instructions say to place the powder on the tongue and then drink something, or else dissolve it in liquid. Powders don't seem to be popular now, but they're practical for people who have trouble swallowing pills. I don't, but I was sold on their nostalgic aura.
The nostalgia factor: I don't remember my parents using powders, but my dad used to make me dissolve an aspirin on the back of my tongue when I had a sore throat, and not baby aspirin ~ a bitter pill to not swallow. In Agatha Christie novels, pharmacists made up paper packets of drugs, always a clue, if not a poison. I also remember when Jell-o came in folded, rather than glued, wax paper packets; maybe it comes in plastic bags now.
The language factor: Fred realized that the old saying "take a powder" as in "get lost" probably referred to these little packets. The idea would be, get out of here, you obviously need to take your meds. Or if you say, "I better take a powder," it means things aren't going well and it's time to get scarce. Makes more sense than trying to work up a possible association with gunpowder or face powder.
In a TV segment on an inferior computerized directional device for drivers, the reporter compared it to "traditional GPS devices." I'm not sure GPS (global positioning system) devices have been around long enough to be considered "traditional."
An editor I worked for at a university was getting enthusiastic one holiday about a tree lighting or some such, and said it was getting to be a tradition. In fact it had happened not more than twice before. Her touching desire for "tradition" reminds me of advertisers who talk about creating family traditions or doing things to create memories. I think if you're doing something with the intention of creating a memory, you're not really paying attention to the moment itself.
At any rate, tradition is something that evolves naturally, not something you invent. How can you know in advance that something will become a tradition? And something has to be done more than twice to become a tradition. I don't know how many times it takes, but I know it's more than twice. I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of "starting a tradition."
As long as I'm kvetching, let us turn our attention to one of the seven deadly sins, pride, Lucifer's own. I refer to exhortations or declarations of pride in things over which one has no control, such as race, nationality, sexual preference, and so on.
I know it's an antidote to the sense of shame that has been attached to conditions such as homosexuality. But if you didn't do it on purpose, if you didn't create it, if you just got whomped with it, where's the shame or the pride? If I said I'm proud to be heterosexual, I might rightly get whomped with derision.
Politics aside, I can't even be proud of being American, because I'm not responsible for my place of birth, or for everything, good and bad, my country does. I'm glad to be an American, I think I'm fortunate; but I can't claim pride.
If I said I'm proud to be Caucasian, I couldn't escape an accusation of racism, although in the U.S., people of other races can and do assert their racial and ethnic pride constantly. I might be able to get away with being proud of my Scottish ancestry, but that's a pretty tenuous hold on pride.
Those things I'm most "proud" of, under close analysis, are really things I'm grateful for, but that I can't take all the credit or responsibility for, such as for my sons. Not that I never experience a sense of pride, but close analysis shows that it is illogical. Thus spake Mr. Spock.
"Virtue" and "virile" both have their root in "vir," the Latin for "man." I used to get rather exercised over the idea that virtue in women almost always referred only to chastity, whereas the manly virtues encompassed so many more qualities. I have reconciled myself to the idea that a woman may find virtue, or strength, in chastity in that it may imply integrity, in the sense of wholeness, as being unimpinged upon by an outside agency ~ if you care for that sort of thing. Whoo! I'll end by referring myself to this quote from De Quincey at www.dict.org:
A man was driven to depend for his security against misunderstanding, upon the pure virtue of his syntax.
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