The Greek classes haven't become much easier, but that perception is partly also because the conversation class took place on Friday.
On Thursday evening there was the Byzantinian folk literature course; we read part of Digenis Akritas (often known as Akritis), a Byzantinian epic which coincidentally enough was written around the time of Beowulf and has apparently since then been reinvented into a national epic. The emir's song which starts the whole thing is the most unmitigated twaddle I have ever read in that line, being tremendously sappy and at the same time gruesome; it seems to have little originality or depth to recommend it. I find it hard to believe that it wasn't invented in the 19th century when it was discovered in Trabizond (and seems since to have been conveniently lost, only to resurface in Italy and in Madrid's Escurial during the 20th century as divergent copies), because it has a generic, ahistorical quality to it which one tends not to find in most folk epics, which are distinctive, weird, and frequently digressive. On the other hand, obviously this opinion shouldn't be taken as my final one since it is not based on a very profound acquaintance with the text. Anyway, the professor mostly spoke in German, and it was only when the classmates were talking in Greek when I didn't understand anything.
Before that the Persian literature survey course took place, as mentioned in the last blog post, and it was mostly an overview of the evolution of the language (Dari; Farsi being the Arabic for Parsi, which in turn derives from the name of a southwestern province of present-day Iran; etc.) and of different verse forms. Just as it is difficult to present Elizabethan verse by stating that sonnets have fourteen lines, grouped together according to the poet's approach, and containing either the Spenserian or other rhyme schemes — without providing any examples —I think it would have been more relatable if snippets of Persian verse had been given. But there is not that much time to do that; besides I copied down two of the titles from the reading list and looked up the first; this led me to read up on al-Mutanabbi, but he is not, I think, Iranian. What did interest me particularly is that the Persians seem to have been using rhyme since before the 9th century AD, whereas if I remember English literature properly it only popped up around the time of Chaucer (so the 14th century) in Britain.
On Friday morning there was the Greek prelanguage course, where we read the first chapter of a book which I remembered from last year, and a classmate from that year and I held a discussion about the difficulties of the other Greek courses. I still tend to be rather sleepy (because the classes usually take place at 8:30) but it is a nice class and it's reassuring that it isn't in Greek.
Then I went to the bookshop, where I wrote the professor an email setting forth the practical impossibility of pursuing the Greek studies this year according to suggestions which the professors and the department have made.
Then I returned for the first year Greek conversation class, which was largely in Greek. A fellow student read out a summary of a text, which she had written, and I didn't understand a thing except "1941" and "Mussolini"; and then the professor talked about Macedonia and also mentioned 1941, and that was basically all I understood in that hour. If there are proper nouns to latch onto, I can figure out what the subject is, but everything else is doubtful. Some words I wrote out and then looked up in the dictionary. Then we were given a satirical poem which she read, and the more experienced classmates understood it and found it funny, and I only knew what was going on when she went through it and translated the unknown words one by one. Then she gave two different homework assignments, one for the experienced (maybe four or five) and another for the inexperienced (another three or four) students. It was confusing and I didn't like being shut out of much of the class; while on the other hand I had to recognize that the professor was making an effort to accommodate us. It's not that I don't remember and didn't learn a great deal last year, it's only that I would have to know three times that vocabulary to get along.
In the evening I had the modern Greek history class, where we were given texts in German and Greek, specifically about the Phanariotes(?) who rather precariously climbed into the elite and served as interpreters and even margraves(?) in the Ottoman Empire, named after the city quarter Phanar in Istanbul. I came in a little late, and the class switched from Greek to German after I entered, but if the other students were irritated by the necessity they didn't show it. Sometimes the professor talked in Greek with the other students, if they asked something in the same language, but he was often comprehensible to me and would switch back eventually anyway; besides I guess it is comforting to feel considered and not feel dumb.
Anyway, it's all been kind of stressful
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Thursday, November 01, 2012
A Happy End and Halloween
I finished my essay on Monday, in the evening, and since then have been taking it easy because I was quite exhausted. There are certain advantages to finishing these things before the start of the new semester, observed Papa, and I agree.
Yesterday evening we celebrated Halloween well. J. and Ge. dressed up, and I wore my Scottish tartan skirt which is more of a compromise than a costume; and five groups or so came by and were allowed to dip into the enormous bowls of candy which Ge. and J. had bought. (I had bought some too, but the licorice spirals and vitamin fruit gummies, for instance, were consumed last evening.) There was plenty left for us, which rounded out the experience.
Other than that, it's been quite cold and the really dark skies with thick clouds and a charcoal-grey colour at their bases have begun pulling through. The plane trees are still quite green, and so are a couple of the trees, even if they have lost most of their leafery.
Soon I will have a lecture on Persian literature, so this is a very brief blog post. (c:
Yesterday evening we celebrated Halloween well. J. and Ge. dressed up, and I wore my Scottish tartan skirt which is more of a compromise than a costume; and five groups or so came by and were allowed to dip into the enormous bowls of candy which Ge. and J. had bought. (I had bought some too, but the licorice spirals and vitamin fruit gummies, for instance, were consumed last evening.) There was plenty left for us, which rounded out the experience.
Other than that, it's been quite cold and the really dark skies with thick clouds and a charcoal-grey colour at their bases have begun pulling through. The plane trees are still quite green, and so are a couple of the trees, even if they have lost most of their leafery.
Soon I will have a lecture on Persian literature, so this is a very brief blog post. (c:
Thursday, October 18, 2012
An Obscure Rant on the First Byzantinian Folk History Lesson
This morning I went to my Greek class with my professor from last year, and it went reasonably well although I had forgotten to take along my grammar book and although she was speaking in Greek for much of the time.
Then I went to the bookshop where two books were bought by separate customers, one person returned a book since his children already had it, one lady chose a book and didn't buy it since the credit card machine wouldn't recognize that a chip existed in either of the two cards she tried, the post delivery man left a package for a neighbour, two gentlemen came in looking for a book I didn't have at hand, someone from the house management firm came by, I had dropped my key inside my purse so that I fished for it even though J. (who was guarding the shop) waved me through the open door, and last but not least, two or three plumbers went in and out to address a massive overflow into the cellar thanks in part to an ancient pipe. The plumber who explained what was wrong afterwards was polite to me, but obviously not impressed.
At home I had enough time to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and then I was off to university again for a course in Byzantinian vernacular literature. By this point I had been up for almost twelve hours.
IMAGINE my surprise when I entered the class and, by and by, professors came in as well as the students. Since the professors were youngish and I thought that my professor may have shown up to provide moral support to a new teacher, it was a great surprise to me when I thought, 'Finally the professor has shown up,' and then he wrote out his name . . . and it was the name of the department head! It turns out that the first part of the lesson was allotted to an introductory event of the Greek faculty.
By this point I was incredibly grumpy, since I hate introductory events, cheerleading for upcoming university courses or semesters, and particularly being forcibly friendly and 'cool' with fellow students — when I think that the ideal relationship with a fellow student is to barely exchange a word during the entire year and then be happy to meet each other again by surprise. Besides I want to focus on the darned academic matter.
Anyway, the professors were introduced, we students were each supposed to say what our minor's programmes were, I refused to make eye contact and therefore got away with not answering; and then I had no chance to wriggle out of it when the department head asked us each to give a little background on ourselves, specifically why we were studying Greek (which is admittedly a reasonable question, but one whose answer is mostly boring for fellow students except if the answer is that one wishes to join a cult whose text is the untranslated New Testament). Besides I have to finish my essay and have no time for distractions!!! The structure of the bachelor's programme was elucidated, and then the professor contingent and the prelanguage course students left; and the actual class began after a short interval in which I read one of the most rebellious sections of the Autobiography of Malcolm X with a great deal of sympathy although my grievances were much more trivial.
As in a different course this morning and on Tuesday, because there are students in the incoming year who have actually gone to Greek schools and speak it amongst each other — whereas my classmates from last year wouldn't dream of it and like me exert themselves considerably to proffer two or three credible sentences at a time — some of the class was conducted in Greek!
As a person who sat in many a class where I inconveniently knew a little too much, like a German class in Canada and an English class in Germany, I did my best not to inconvenience my classmates or demand anything. I was bored and it didn't improve my working habits, but I dealt with it because otherwise I could have just knuckled down and learned extra grammar or whatever so that I could be put in a more difficult class. Besides I thought that some things would be new and in fact they were; and I don't think everything always goes the way one would like it and that it's useful to learn to handle that.
Such masochism should be widespread!
Anyway, as Mama also pointed out, the language immersion should be helpful. But it drives me mad that I, after only one year of language instruction, am being asked to keep up the same level as someone who has lived in Greece!!!
On Tuesday my saintlier reaction to this state of affairs was to begin listening to a Greek news video on a semi-daily basis again — not because I understand more than half of it but because it helps to have the language in one's ear. But today, muchly enraged, I surmised that I could passive-aggressively counterbalance the situation by coming in for extra help during my professor's office hour until the gaps of knowledge are closed and by taking up her time thusly practice a form of civil disobedience which neither Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, nor Mahatma Gandhi would likely recognize. Ge. and J. were not much impressed by this unsaintly notion, either, so I am just going to enjoy the idea of it.
Then I went to the bookshop where two books were bought by separate customers, one person returned a book since his children already had it, one lady chose a book and didn't buy it since the credit card machine wouldn't recognize that a chip existed in either of the two cards she tried, the post delivery man left a package for a neighbour, two gentlemen came in looking for a book I didn't have at hand, someone from the house management firm came by, I had dropped my key inside my purse so that I fished for it even though J. (who was guarding the shop) waved me through the open door, and last but not least, two or three plumbers went in and out to address a massive overflow into the cellar thanks in part to an ancient pipe. The plumber who explained what was wrong afterwards was polite to me, but obviously not impressed.
At home I had enough time to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and then I was off to university again for a course in Byzantinian vernacular literature. By this point I had been up for almost twelve hours.
IMAGINE my surprise when I entered the class and, by and by, professors came in as well as the students. Since the professors were youngish and I thought that my professor may have shown up to provide moral support to a new teacher, it was a great surprise to me when I thought, 'Finally the professor has shown up,' and then he wrote out his name . . . and it was the name of the department head! It turns out that the first part of the lesson was allotted to an introductory event of the Greek faculty.
By this point I was incredibly grumpy, since I hate introductory events, cheerleading for upcoming university courses or semesters, and particularly being forcibly friendly and 'cool' with fellow students — when I think that the ideal relationship with a fellow student is to barely exchange a word during the entire year and then be happy to meet each other again by surprise. Besides I want to focus on the darned academic matter.
Anyway, the professors were introduced, we students were each supposed to say what our minor's programmes were, I refused to make eye contact and therefore got away with not answering; and then I had no chance to wriggle out of it when the department head asked us each to give a little background on ourselves, specifically why we were studying Greek (which is admittedly a reasonable question, but one whose answer is mostly boring for fellow students except if the answer is that one wishes to join a cult whose text is the untranslated New Testament). Besides I have to finish my essay and have no time for distractions!!! The structure of the bachelor's programme was elucidated, and then the professor contingent and the prelanguage course students left; and the actual class began after a short interval in which I read one of the most rebellious sections of the Autobiography of Malcolm X with a great deal of sympathy although my grievances were much more trivial.
As in a different course this morning and on Tuesday, because there are students in the incoming year who have actually gone to Greek schools and speak it amongst each other — whereas my classmates from last year wouldn't dream of it and like me exert themselves considerably to proffer two or three credible sentences at a time — some of the class was conducted in Greek!
As a person who sat in many a class where I inconveniently knew a little too much, like a German class in Canada and an English class in Germany, I did my best not to inconvenience my classmates or demand anything. I was bored and it didn't improve my working habits, but I dealt with it because otherwise I could have just knuckled down and learned extra grammar or whatever so that I could be put in a more difficult class. Besides I thought that some things would be new and in fact they were; and I don't think everything always goes the way one would like it and that it's useful to learn to handle that.
Such masochism should be widespread!
Anyway, as Mama also pointed out, the language immersion should be helpful. But it drives me mad that I, after only one year of language instruction, am being asked to keep up the same level as someone who has lived in Greece!!!
On Tuesday my saintlier reaction to this state of affairs was to begin listening to a Greek news video on a semi-daily basis again — not because I understand more than half of it but because it helps to have the language in one's ear. But today, muchly enraged, I surmised that I could passive-aggressively counterbalance the situation by coming in for extra help during my professor's office hour until the gaps of knowledge are closed and by taking up her time thusly practice a form of civil disobedience which neither Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, nor Mahatma Gandhi would likely recognize. Ge. and J. were not much impressed by this unsaintly notion, either, so I am just going to enjoy the idea of it.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
My Essay on the Moorish Science Temple, Part 2
Apologies in advance for the statistics salad which this part of the essay has become. I will undoubtedly have to condense and beautify it in the German-language version which I hand in. It is also subject to small changes as my research, er, finishes progressing.
THE FOUNDER AND PROPHET of the MSTA, Timothy Drew, was born in North Carolina, on January 8, 1886, by his own account. Greensboro is mentioned as his birthplace; it was a town of some 2,100 inhabitants at the time of the 1880 Census, with a long history of settlement including of the Quakers — First Lady Dolley Madison was born in present-day Greensboro in 1768 — and with its own War of Independence battle in 1781. During slavery it was a station on the Underground Railway; the abolitionist businessman Levi Coffin opened a Sunday school for slaves in 1821 which was however swiftly suppressed; during the Civil War, it was Confederate territory. Its population grew steadily; in 1910 it encompassed approximately 15,895 souls.
The south at the end of the 1800s was plagued by Jim Crow laws, segregation, and lynching,1 as it would continue to be until the 1950s. The Emancipation Proclamation had been passed in 1863, but so was the segregationalists' legal cornerstone Plessy v. Ferguson in the Supreme Court in 1889. There were serious miscarriages of justice, like the Scottsboro case in 1931. As far as voting rights were concerned, even in 1957 a Mississippi teacher — an African American — who tried to register to vote had obstacles set in his path. Then he was informed that the attention of the Ku Klux Klan had been drawn upon him, so he was under police protection for a time.2
There were continued attempts at procuring an education and establishing businesses, likewise in the north. Even before Booker T. Washington founded his National Negro Business League in 1900, there were thousands of African American businesses. Only two banks numbered amongst them, but by the end of the decade the quantity was 'nearly fifty.' A minuscule fraction of African Americans had also gone to college by 1899 (1,914 in the thirty-four black institutions and 390 in white ones, which included prestigious institutions like Bowdoin and Oberlin colleges; and women were among them). Newspapers proliferated and, in a few cases, had over a hundred thousand readers.
American culture of the turn of the century, and later, certainly facilitated the success of African Americans in the arts, if only in spotty fashion. Sidney Poitier, for instance, was only nominated for an Academy Award in 1958, after a lot of cinematic water had gone under the bridge.
THE FOUNDER AND PROPHET of the MSTA, Timothy Drew, was born in North Carolina, on January 8, 1886, by his own account. Greensboro is mentioned as his birthplace; it was a town of some 2,100 inhabitants at the time of the 1880 Census, with a long history of settlement including of the Quakers — First Lady Dolley Madison was born in present-day Greensboro in 1768 — and with its own War of Independence battle in 1781. During slavery it was a station on the Underground Railway; the abolitionist businessman Levi Coffin opened a Sunday school for slaves in 1821 which was however swiftly suppressed; during the Civil War, it was Confederate territory. Its population grew steadily; in 1910 it encompassed approximately 15,895 souls.
 |
| Photo: Drinking at "Colored" Water Cooler in Streetcar Terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (July 1939) By Russell Lee From Library of Congress, prob. public domain |
The south at the end of the 1800s was plagued by Jim Crow laws, segregation, and lynching,1 as it would continue to be until the 1950s. The Emancipation Proclamation had been passed in 1863, but so was the segregationalists' legal cornerstone Plessy v. Ferguson in the Supreme Court in 1889. There were serious miscarriages of justice, like the Scottsboro case in 1931. As far as voting rights were concerned, even in 1957 a Mississippi teacher — an African American — who tried to register to vote had obstacles set in his path. Then he was informed that the attention of the Ku Klux Klan had been drawn upon him, so he was under police protection for a time.2
There were continued attempts at procuring an education and establishing businesses, likewise in the north. Even before Booker T. Washington founded his National Negro Business League in 1900, there were thousands of African American businesses. Only two banks numbered amongst them, but by the end of the decade the quantity was 'nearly fifty.' A minuscule fraction of African Americans had also gone to college by 1899 (1,914 in the thirty-four black institutions and 390 in white ones, which included prestigious institutions like Bowdoin and Oberlin colleges; and women were among them). Newspapers proliferated and, in a few cases, had over a hundred thousand readers.
American culture of the turn of the century, and later, certainly facilitated the success of African Americans in the arts, if only in spotty fashion. Sidney Poitier, for instance, was only nominated for an Academy Award in 1958, after a lot of cinematic water had gone under the bridge.
Friday, October 12, 2012
My Essay on the Moorish Science Temple, Part 1
 |
| Current or former MST location in Chicago. Taken by Google Street View, April 2009 |
—David WalkerI DECLARE it does appear to me as though some nations think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe history, sacred or profane. I ask every man who has a heart, and is blessed with the privilege of believing—Is not God a God of justice to all his creatures? Do you say he is? Then if he gives peace and tranquility to tyrants and permits them to keep our fathers, our mothers, ourselves and our children in eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support them and their families, would he be to us a God of Justice? I ask, O, ye Christians, who hold us and our children in the most abject ignorance and degradation that ever a people were afflicted with since the world began—I say if God gives you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our children, who have never given you the least provocation—would He be to us a God of Justice?
DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. "The Talented Tenth." in: Washington, Booker T., et al. The Negro Problem. Mobile Reference, 2009. Web. [Google Books]
—Barack ObamaIT'S not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
"Top 10 gaffes in presidential campaigns." SFGate.com. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. [http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Top-10-gaffes-in-presidential-campaigns-49242.php#photo-3472619]
***
If you seek out the places where the religious community Moorish Science Temple of America is or was once located, by present-day virtual means, you are often transported into disconsolate environments.
These tend to be urban ones: names of shops are painted onto signs and awnings by hand, the antiquish false fronts would fit perfectly into the Wild West, the street is fissured or seamed by dark tar strips, a quadrangle of grass grows where a house was torn down, old-fashioned sedans are parked alongside the road, in extreme cases the roof is dilapidated so that it must be drenched during rain, industrial terrain is immobile, windows of houses down the street are nailed shut with boards, and the shop or house itself has grates in front of the windows and door to ward off theft and violence. A casual search for an address in Pittsburgh leads to local news of three shooting deaths within two years in front of one bar, and one in Fayetteville in Georgia leads to a police blotter.
Therefore it seems, also if one reads of the history of the Temple, that to arrive at the truest picture of the origins and present state of the Moorish Science Temple's congregation, one must endeavour to understand its socioeconomic context, formerly and currently. Many aspects of the doctrine and mythology, and all of the internal politics, of the Temple will come short in this essay, also because even scholars dispute what information is fact and which fiction1; while Chicago is particularly focused upon since it can serve as a microcosm of the industrial north.
_______
Google Street View. Web. 7 Sept. - 13 Oct. 2012.
Sherman, Jerome L. "Does bar play a role in violence?". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 22 Nov. 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.
"Rockdale Blotter - 10/29/10." Rockdale Citizen 28 Oct. 2010. Web. [http://www.rockdalecitizen.com/news/2010/oct/28/rockdale-blotter-102910/]
1 Even the year of the founder, Noble Drew Ali's, death varies depending on the scholar.
Pinn, Anthony B. Varieties of African American Religious Experience. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998. 215. Web. [Google Books]
The Illinois State Archives have a death record for "Timothy Drew" on July 20, 1929; and the African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender (the image is credited to a "Defender Staff Photographer"), apparently ran a photo of "Noble Drew Ali"'s funeral. The caption mentions that he was buried at Burr Oak cemetery, where his headstone bears the date "1929."
"Prophet Noble Drew Ali's funeral." Moorish Society. 4 Apr. 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. [http://moorishsociety.com/2012/04/04/prophet-noble-drew-alis-funeral/]
Illinois Statewide Death Index. Web. 2 Oct. 2012 [http://www.ilsos.gov/isavital/idphDeathSearch.do Search for "Drew" and "Timothy."]
"Noble Drew Ali." FindAGrave.com. 1 Feb. 2005. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. [Link]
So the year 1929 — not 1920 — seems plausible.
[P.S.: Really not so fond of the new MLA formating, which I am using for all my footnotes and which looks very different from what it did back in 2005 when I last applied it to university work.]
Monday, October 08, 2012
Notes From the Essay-Path
Last night I read the first part of a long history of Chicago's parks, particularly on the South Side, which I found extremely interesting and which has made me look at streets in a different way. Basically the idea is that the early magnates and city government of Chicago were privy to the fairly new arrangements of Haussmann in Paris, which served as an inspiration to the new streets; and that the same Frederick Law Olmsted who planned out Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn wanted to have boulevards as tree-beplanted 'tunnels' between parks. Since at that time the traffic was horsedrawn and pedestrian, the grandest boulevards seemed to consist of several different tracks; and it was only in the 1890s where asphalt and electric street lamps came into use. The question with the streets is how to arrange the drainage, prevent excessive strain on the surface, and stay aesthetically pleasing; for a while cedar wood paving was used on some roads and 'blast furnace slag' was one possibility for the gutters. The streets' forerunners were sometimes Native American trails, navigating through surer and less swampy soil, and one or two avenues which joined the park district later were pioneer plank streets. I liked the other trivia, too — that a gas lantern had 8 to 10 candlepower or something, whereas the electric lamp had 2000. Lastly, the park management on the West Side was clearly hugely corrupt, but at least in this report the management on the South Side looks highly respectable.
The whole point of the exercise is to have a contextual sense of urban development during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which may seem beside the point of my essay, but which isn't particularly as the socioeconomics which might bring forth religious groups are its focus. So I have read much more of the Autobiography of Malcolm X, for instance, but I don't think I will bring the Nation of Islam into the essay aside from mentioning that it is partially the legacy of the Moorish Science Temple's .
For the purposes of an essay it's self-defeating, but like during the last semester I keep on wondering what Truth is in relation to history. The basic question is, how can I write something which someone who is affected by the subject which I am writing about would recognize? I don't know all the time which facts are true and which are important. So I use instinct and I consult different sources from different perspectives in different disciplines. Obviously this takes longer, but I dislike feeling sloppy and mendacious.
Besides, I think that the principles and the historiographical ideas of the Moorish Science Temple are easily found enough, and that these are moreover fluid and open to interpretation by different followers and perhaps closed to interpretation by the skeptical outsider. The organization and its degrees of power don't interest me very much either, because they seem to me to be 'ersatz' for something else. So I want to take a very concrete approach, make something clear of the events like the Great Depression and the New Deal and the First World War, the formal and informal minutiae of segregation, and the evolution for instance of Chicago; perhaps something of the general religious foment if I manage to bring my investigation of the prominent branches of Christianity in the first half of the 20th century to a reasonable point; and still, I guess, in an authorial manner, capture some of the individual human drama.
In short, this is all overly ambitious, but it kind of sweeps one up in its breadth and historical momentum.
***
Anyway, right now I am at the bookshop, and it has been a quiet morning thus far. I went to sleep after 5 a.m. last night and woke up before 9 a.m., so I feel a little hollow-eyed. But this is definitely preferable to my original notion of remaining awake the entire night.
The whole point of the exercise is to have a contextual sense of urban development during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which may seem beside the point of my essay, but which isn't particularly as the socioeconomics which might bring forth religious groups are its focus. So I have read much more of the Autobiography of Malcolm X, for instance, but I don't think I will bring the Nation of Islam into the essay aside from mentioning that it is partially the legacy of the Moorish Science Temple's .
For the purposes of an essay it's self-defeating, but like during the last semester I keep on wondering what Truth is in relation to history. The basic question is, how can I write something which someone who is affected by the subject which I am writing about would recognize? I don't know all the time which facts are true and which are important. So I use instinct and I consult different sources from different perspectives in different disciplines. Obviously this takes longer, but I dislike feeling sloppy and mendacious.
Besides, I think that the principles and the historiographical ideas of the Moorish Science Temple are easily found enough, and that these are moreover fluid and open to interpretation by different followers and perhaps closed to interpretation by the skeptical outsider. The organization and its degrees of power don't interest me very much either, because they seem to me to be 'ersatz' for something else. So I want to take a very concrete approach, make something clear of the events like the Great Depression and the New Deal and the First World War, the formal and informal minutiae of segregation, and the evolution for instance of Chicago; perhaps something of the general religious foment if I manage to bring my investigation of the prominent branches of Christianity in the first half of the 20th century to a reasonable point; and still, I guess, in an authorial manner, capture some of the individual human drama.
In short, this is all overly ambitious, but it kind of sweeps one up in its breadth and historical momentum.
***
Anyway, right now I am at the bookshop, and it has been a quiet morning thus far. I went to sleep after 5 a.m. last night and woke up before 9 a.m., so I feel a little hollow-eyed. But this is definitely preferable to my original notion of remaining awake the entire night.
Saturday, October 06, 2012
A Poem on Fieldmouse Fodder
I wrote the original draft of this poem on November 26, 2008 and have thought of posting it several times because I like horse chestnut trees and it comes to mind sometimes when the seasons change. Some of these things are observed but I have no idea if fieldmice eat chestnuts. It's not a very good or original poem in my opinion, so I include it more for its atmosphere.
***
Its winding roots are dipped
into the clayey chilled soil
and the wetness of dark water
blooms and seeps around their threads;
grasping rock, enclosing pebble,
cleaving through the fundament.
Anchored there, the trunk swells stoutly,
rough and grey and boldly tall;
and grows athwart in hefty branches,
stalwart perches for a nest.
*
IN SPRING, its fuzzed and pale leaf-buds
curl up to the bald cool sky.
In summer, the palmeate rays of green
raise sprinkled towers of rose-flecked blossom
from these drift the lightsome petals
wandering over brooding grass;
and weigh with lazy dignity
in lonely clump on shadowed fields, —
or burst with power, a tree of life,
amidst the tomblike secluded domain
of some distressing cobbled yard.
In autumn, shrivelling as if by flame
of scorching sunsets, lit the world
as from a hidden fiery pool,
crowns of spikes, crowns of cruelly
slaughtered verdure;
spindly-tipped maces whose fresh green thorns
harden, whose casket breaks asunder,
whose milkwhite flesh grows soft and dies
as the dark-pearled nut
is unhusked and left to lie,
a treasure exposed,
to insects, fieldmice, squirrels, and men.
In winter, melancholy,
lofty twig and branch untenanted,
ordered flurry of raindark twigs,
gently scaled and bronzy tips
which promise much in coming springs,
and skeleton with tangled ribs
where birds alight, and hide, and sing.
***
Its winding roots are dipped
into the clayey chilled soil
and the wetness of dark water
blooms and seeps around their threads;
grasping rock, enclosing pebble,
cleaving through the fundament.
Anchored there, the trunk swells stoutly,
rough and grey and boldly tall;
and grows athwart in hefty branches,
stalwart perches for a nest.
*
IN SPRING, its fuzzed and pale leaf-buds
curl up to the bald cool sky.
In summer, the palmeate rays of green
raise sprinkled towers of rose-flecked blossom
from these drift the lightsome petals
wandering over brooding grass;
and weigh with lazy dignity
in lonely clump on shadowed fields, —
or burst with power, a tree of life,
amidst the tomblike secluded domain
of some distressing cobbled yard.
In autumn, shrivelling as if by flame
of scorching sunsets, lit the world
as from a hidden fiery pool,
crowns of spikes, crowns of cruelly
slaughtered verdure;
spindly-tipped maces whose fresh green thorns
harden, whose casket breaks asunder,
whose milkwhite flesh grows soft and dies
as the dark-pearled nut
is unhusked and left to lie,
a treasure exposed,
to insects, fieldmice, squirrels, and men.
In winter, melancholy,
lofty twig and branch untenanted,
ordered flurry of raindark twigs,
gently scaled and bronzy tips
which promise much in coming springs,
and skeleton with tangled ribs
where birds alight, and hide, and sing.
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Live-Blog of the Pacified Ogre
To be honest, I'm not working on my essay intensely today, since I feel scatter-brained and like my concentration needs a rest. I have a bad conscience, but I want this to be a 'complete' essay and for that I want to keep researching different aspects and keeping a thoughtful pace until everything falls into place. Besides, I want to be accurate and not lie about anything except if all of my sources are at fault and so there's no way I could know that it's untruthful. Anyway, this should be a leisurely live-blog.
1:09 a.m. I'm foraying into general American religious life in the early 20th century and have discovered a census from 1951 which lists denominations, the numbers of their churches or synagogues or other houses of worship, and the numbers of their members. Now I'm looking up the churches which were listed on Wikipedia. I expect some invigorating sensationalist reading; some of the first words I read were "speaking in tongues." It is really fun to be reading about a subject for a long time and partly overcoming pretty dry texts, and then to start reading tidbits which are as stimulating and striking as anything fictitious.
1:36 a.m. "Eschatological." I've seen it before and have no idea what it means.
1:38 a.m. "The wicked will not suffer eternal torment in hell, but instead will be permanently destroyed." Merciful Heavens!
1:42 a.m. Note to self: must read New Testament to see if Jesus in fact cared what clothes people wore.
2:49 a.m. Washing of feet! (Not mine; it's a practice within the church I'm reading about.) The "anointing of oil" also reminds me of the anecdote, courtesy an old New York Review of Books article, about the ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, a ceremony, and vegetable shortening. Or, indirectly, about the time my mother taught Sunday School and we made a tincture of hyssop steeped in alcohol. I was wondering why I couldn't remember the sermons in the church, and now I realize that it was because I wasn't always in the room then; I was in the basement with my age peers learning about the trinity or about Lazarus instead, in an ecumenical way since I'm baptized Catholic and the church was Protestant. (Obviously I'm in a reminiscent mood.)
3:38 a.m. Snake-handling.
4:16 a.m. Re. eschatology: oh.
5:09 a.m. I'm tired and will thus go to bed soon. (c:
1:09 a.m. I'm foraying into general American religious life in the early 20th century and have discovered a census from 1951 which lists denominations, the numbers of their churches or synagogues or other houses of worship, and the numbers of their members. Now I'm looking up the churches which were listed on Wikipedia. I expect some invigorating sensationalist reading; some of the first words I read were "speaking in tongues." It is really fun to be reading about a subject for a long time and partly overcoming pretty dry texts, and then to start reading tidbits which are as stimulating and striking as anything fictitious.
1:36 a.m. "Eschatological." I've seen it before and have no idea what it means.
1:38 a.m. "The wicked will not suffer eternal torment in hell, but instead will be permanently destroyed." Merciful Heavens!
1:42 a.m. Note to self: must read New Testament to see if Jesus in fact cared what clothes people wore.
2:49 a.m. Washing of feet! (Not mine; it's a practice within the church I'm reading about.) The "anointing of oil" also reminds me of the anecdote, courtesy an old New York Review of Books article, about the ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, a ceremony, and vegetable shortening. Or, indirectly, about the time my mother taught Sunday School and we made a tincture of hyssop steeped in alcohol. I was wondering why I couldn't remember the sermons in the church, and now I realize that it was because I wasn't always in the room then; I was in the basement with my age peers learning about the trinity or about Lazarus instead, in an ecumenical way since I'm baptized Catholic and the church was Protestant. (Obviously I'm in a reminiscent mood.)
3:38 a.m. Snake-handling.
4:16 a.m. Re. eschatology: oh.
5:09 a.m. I'm tired and will thus go to bed soon. (c:
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Ogre Tackles An Essay
This time I am trying a live-blog of my History and Culture of the Near East essay again, not this time because I am effervescing past the brim with joyful discoveries but because I am gnarled with grim chagrin and tired besides. On principle persons who slept perhaps five hours the night before with a degree of choice should not complain, but I feel so monumentally grumpy that one might as well celebrate it.
5:42 a.m. I am looking up the streets of extant Moorish Science Temple buildings on Flickr, and there is an overenthusiastic photographer who has uploaded millions of photos of Manhattan and Brooklyn, which end up in my results page even if I am researching an entirely different city. Every time this Thing comes up again, and the blast-durnded street address isn't even given when in fact it *is* relevant, I have been intoning the F-word very loudly in my head. Brevity is the soul of wit, said Pope (or I think Shakespeare, first), and many have said since his time that less is more.
6:25 a.m. The Flickring is done and I am going to sleep! Longer liveblog, perhaps, tomorrow. Must rest before I turn into a zombie and begin to prowl for cerebellaceous fare.
5:42 a.m. I am looking up the streets of extant Moorish Science Temple buildings on Flickr, and there is an overenthusiastic photographer who has uploaded millions of photos of Manhattan and Brooklyn, which end up in my results page even if I am researching an entirely different city. Every time this Thing comes up again, and the blast-durnded street address isn't even given when in fact it *is* relevant, I have been intoning the F-word very loudly in my head. Brevity is the soul of wit, said Pope (or I think Shakespeare, first), and many have said since his time that less is more.
6:25 a.m. The Flickring is done and I am going to sleep! Longer liveblog, perhaps, tomorrow. Must rest before I turn into a zombie and begin to prowl for cerebellaceous fare.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Kirkpatrick and a Du Bois-Washington Debate
Yesterday and the day before I went on a grand cooking venture, so today I have been using up part of the remainder of a generous bunch of mint, picking over excess parsley, and wondering at my own indefatigability evidenced by my making a potful of rice pudding sometime between lunch and dinner today.
After sleeping in I began to reread the Autobiography of Malcolm X, with an eye to using it as a source in my Moorish Science Temple essay. The Temple itself has not been mentioned so far, but perhaps its insights into the Nation of Islam might be useful. When I was a teenager I found the events in it a bit brutal and the language of the narrator very stern, nearly up until the end. I was also a little annoyed that he hinted at a great deal about the Nation of Islam but neglected particulars (good aspects, bad aspects, internal politics, etc.) — now I suspect that he simply refused to draw the FBI a map. Rereading the earlier bits now, his boatloads of just resentment are still striking. From my own perspective, I think that his still-festering wounds were poisoning him and as far as the culprits (misguided welfare workers, benevolent classmates and reform school leaders and so on who would not recognize him as his own intelligent person, etc.) were concerned it was pretty useless to point the wounds out to them in public; most of us simply aren't interested in rattling the skeletons in the closet of our conscience. As a self-portrait and as a narrative with which young readers can identify, I think his childhood as described in his autobiography works well; as a massive Yom Kippur schedule of everyone he's known, not so well.
Last evening I watched videos with Itzhak Perlman on YouTube, inspired by his visit on the Colbert Report. While clearly much prized by people who know these things better than me, I didn't think before that he had any strikingly idiosyncratic style; but his two pieces on the Report woke me up to the fact that his playing is excellent and full of character, and even if the interview was a little awkward the the music fit into the show perfectly, so now I am a convert.
During the past week I played the cembalo now and then, a thorough round of fugues and preludiums from the Well-Tempered Clavier being good fodder for a brooding mood, and I could admire again their inexhaustible character. What is kind of fun is to experiment with the very curious sound of the instrument itself, particularly with the different levers, and then to play things in an uncanny witchy way like Wanda Landowska does with pieces like something by Couperin on YouTube which frankly terrifies me a little. There is something about decadent creepiness in church-like music that makes me kind of mad for religious reasons, because I think it is like death-worship or a richly rotting waste or a pagan mass or something of the sort. Which sounds kind of Puritan, but I have not reached for any pitchforks yet; it simply means that I like finding a bit of fright but try not to go the whole hog. As for 'role models' at the cembalo, I did a search for something by Ralph Kirkpatrick since I read part of his Scarlatti biography in an autodidactic mood in the mid-2000s, besides which his name appears in some sort of advisory or supervisory capacity on some of our scores. It turned out to be an excellent idea because (at least this was my strong first impression) he has a lovely intelligence and command of detail and depth.
Regarding university, I went to my professor's office to review my exam and we came to the conclusion that I must review my grammar before the next semester. My professor and the department secretary drew up the letter which states that I have satisfactorily attended the course and its exam. Then, last morning or perhaps the morning before that, the letter came with my student identification for the next year. So everything is all set, except for my Moorish Science Temple essay, for which I have been reading a little Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, and being driven up the wall a little by Mr. Washington. One choice sample is a passage about how "backward" he finds Bushmen, while I have held much the opposite stereotype: a self-sufficient and proud group, sophisticated in their hunting techniques and their culture — how many still live in the countryside, though, I don't know. Another is his baby-with-the-bathwater claim that higher education is making young African-Americans useless; they should humbly learn and practice some craft (wheelwrighting, etc.) so that they may accumulate a little property and thus earn the respect of the white community. !!! Of course it's lousy of me to be annoyed that he isn't politically correct enough, but his opinions are clearly indicative of extensive brainwashing by the pale elite of his time, and there's no need to be so patronizing. Du Bois then ridiculed the wheelwrighting philosophy with a gunpowder momentum which made me feel rather better again.
After sleeping in I began to reread the Autobiography of Malcolm X, with an eye to using it as a source in my Moorish Science Temple essay. The Temple itself has not been mentioned so far, but perhaps its insights into the Nation of Islam might be useful. When I was a teenager I found the events in it a bit brutal and the language of the narrator very stern, nearly up until the end. I was also a little annoyed that he hinted at a great deal about the Nation of Islam but neglected particulars (good aspects, bad aspects, internal politics, etc.) — now I suspect that he simply refused to draw the FBI a map. Rereading the earlier bits now, his boatloads of just resentment are still striking. From my own perspective, I think that his still-festering wounds were poisoning him and as far as the culprits (misguided welfare workers, benevolent classmates and reform school leaders and so on who would not recognize him as his own intelligent person, etc.) were concerned it was pretty useless to point the wounds out to them in public; most of us simply aren't interested in rattling the skeletons in the closet of our conscience. As a self-portrait and as a narrative with which young readers can identify, I think his childhood as described in his autobiography works well; as a massive Yom Kippur schedule of everyone he's known, not so well.
Last evening I watched videos with Itzhak Perlman on YouTube, inspired by his visit on the Colbert Report. While clearly much prized by people who know these things better than me, I didn't think before that he had any strikingly idiosyncratic style; but his two pieces on the Report woke me up to the fact that his playing is excellent and full of character, and even if the interview was a little awkward the the music fit into the show perfectly, so now I am a convert.
During the past week I played the cembalo now and then, a thorough round of fugues and preludiums from the Well-Tempered Clavier being good fodder for a brooding mood, and I could admire again their inexhaustible character. What is kind of fun is to experiment with the very curious sound of the instrument itself, particularly with the different levers, and then to play things in an uncanny witchy way like Wanda Landowska does with pieces like something by Couperin on YouTube which frankly terrifies me a little. There is something about decadent creepiness in church-like music that makes me kind of mad for religious reasons, because I think it is like death-worship or a richly rotting waste or a pagan mass or something of the sort. Which sounds kind of Puritan, but I have not reached for any pitchforks yet; it simply means that I like finding a bit of fright but try not to go the whole hog. As for 'role models' at the cembalo, I did a search for something by Ralph Kirkpatrick since I read part of his Scarlatti biography in an autodidactic mood in the mid-2000s, besides which his name appears in some sort of advisory or supervisory capacity on some of our scores. It turned out to be an excellent idea because (at least this was my strong first impression) he has a lovely intelligence and command of detail and depth.
Regarding university, I went to my professor's office to review my exam and we came to the conclusion that I must review my grammar before the next semester. My professor and the department secretary drew up the letter which states that I have satisfactorily attended the course and its exam. Then, last morning or perhaps the morning before that, the letter came with my student identification for the next year. So everything is all set, except for my Moorish Science Temple essay, for which I have been reading a little Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, and being driven up the wall a little by Mr. Washington. One choice sample is a passage about how "backward" he finds Bushmen, while I have held much the opposite stereotype: a self-sufficient and proud group, sophisticated in their hunting techniques and their culture — how many still live in the countryside, though, I don't know. Another is his baby-with-the-bathwater claim that higher education is making young African-Americans useless; they should humbly learn and practice some craft (wheelwrighting, etc.) so that they may accumulate a little property and thus earn the respect of the white community. !!! Of course it's lousy of me to be annoyed that he isn't politically correct enough, but his opinions are clearly indicative of extensive brainwashing by the pale elite of his time, and there's no need to be so patronizing. Du Bois then ridiculed the wheelwrighting philosophy with a gunpowder momentum which made me feel rather better again.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
My Notes of Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day, Part VI
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
N.B.B: This is, at last, the final installment of notes for this convention! Next night I might even sleep more than three hours instead of being discommoded by the time zone differences. (c:
11:26 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa. Chant: We are fired up! Nomination seconded by everyone roaring "Yea!"
Alice Germond, secretary of the committee, calls the roll of the states. We know that every state counts and that every vote is precious, she says, apparently criticizing treatment of Ron Paul delegates in Republican Convention. California has 609 votes, 37.5 million people! I like the secretary, who could be a benevolent figure amongst the magicians' faculty of Hogwarts. Dr. Joseph Lowery speaking for Georgia! [Besides being a civil rights activist and minister, I've just seen that he is the person who incorporated the in, my view very funny, mellow/yellow, etc., line at the Obama inauguration.] The young Iowan speakers are pretty endearing. As Mississippi passes to Ohio, Obama receives enough votes for an official nomination. Music: "Celebration Time" as a screen says "Over the Top!" 384 votes for New York State. Puerto Rico: land of Sonia Sotomayor. :) Is Ashley Judd announcing Tennessee (home of Grand Ole Opry) 's votes? [A certain online encyclopaedia states that she "earned a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration degree (MC MPA, a one year degree, not to be confused with the more rigorous two-year MPA) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government," in 2010, before mentioning that yes, she is a political activist.] She looks lovely. Vermont: "first state in the union to outlaw slavery," says Sen. Patrick Leahy. Virgin Islands, which has 12 votes. Virginia: home, for instance, to Gabby Douglas. Washington State. Wisconsin. etc. I've boiled this all down considerably, because this took a very, very long time.
N.B.B: This is, at last, the final installment of notes for this convention! Next night I might even sleep more than three hours instead of being discommoded by the time zone differences. (c:
11:26 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa. Chant: We are fired up! Nomination seconded by everyone roaring "Yea!"
 |
| Ashley Judd at the ABC's Missing @ The Paley Center 2012, by Genevieve. April 11, 2012. via Wikimedia Commons, (Licence: (CC BY 2.0)) |
Alice Germond, secretary of the committee, calls the roll of the states. We know that every state counts and that every vote is precious, she says, apparently criticizing treatment of Ron Paul delegates in Republican Convention. California has 609 votes, 37.5 million people! I like the secretary, who could be a benevolent figure amongst the magicians' faculty of Hogwarts. Dr. Joseph Lowery speaking for Georgia! [Besides being a civil rights activist and minister, I've just seen that he is the person who incorporated the in, my view very funny, mellow/yellow, etc., line at the Obama inauguration.] The young Iowan speakers are pretty endearing. As Mississippi passes to Ohio, Obama receives enough votes for an official nomination. Music: "Celebration Time" as a screen says "Over the Top!" 384 votes for New York State. Puerto Rico: land of Sonia Sotomayor. :) Is Ashley Judd announcing Tennessee (home of Grand Ole Opry) 's votes? [A certain online encyclopaedia states that she "earned a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration degree (MC MPA, a one year degree, not to be confused with the more rigorous two-year MPA) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government," in 2010, before mentioning that yes, she is a political activist.] She looks lovely. Vermont: "first state in the union to outlaw slavery," says Sen. Patrick Leahy. Virgin Islands, which has 12 votes. Virginia: home, for instance, to Gabby Douglas. Washington State. Wisconsin. etc. I've boiled this all down considerably, because this took a very, very long time.
My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part V
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
Elizabeth Warren, con'td.:
She "grew up on the ragged fringes of the middle class," her father was a maintenance man, her brothers went to the military and moved on to other jobs, she was a waitress at thirteen and then an elementary school teacher and now a mother and grandmother 'married to a great man.' Hails the opportunities of America. A bit of agitation against "Wall Street CEOs" who arrogantly demand taxpayer handouts despite their reckless handling of the economy resulting in terrible losses. Generally an argument for equal economic opportunity. "I got mine; the rest of you are on your own": her interpretation of the Republican ethos. 'Corporations are people': — I haven't written this down perfectly — 'no — people have hearts and they have children, they live and they love and they die; and that matters.' Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, survived by grace of President Obama's steadfast support in the face of enormous corporate opposition. No to "free ride" and "golden parachute." Main Street/Wall Street talk. She was a Methodist Sunday school teacher, too, and quotes "Inasmuch," which also cropped up in the Republican convention.
10:31 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa: introducing Bill Clinton, via a film treating him a little like a rock star and mentioning the Clinton Global Initiative as well as his presidency and its economic triumphs. High enthusiasm for Bill Clinton.
10:34 p.m. The man himself. Loud cheers for characterizing Obama as man who is "cool on the outside" but burning with fervour for America on the inside; and "after last night," the man "who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama." He recapitulates the dire picture which the Republican National Convention speakers drew of the Democratic economic philosophy, then says that "We're all in this together" is a better philosophy than the Republican "You're on your own."
Hate of far-right Republicans for Obama and some Democrats is in his opinion unprecedented. (Chelsea Clinton is there too!) Says that understandable frustration in hard times may make for good politics, but cooperation leads to good policy. Despite this extreme climate, Obama deserves encouragement because he is "still committed to constructive cooperation." Cheers for Joe Biden for his role in that cooperation. Praising Obamas' support for serving military, veterans and their families.
Criticizes prioritizing putting Obama out of work to putting people in work. Dissects Republican economic platform and says that is identical to or worse than Bush-era policy which got America into the current situation. Banks are beginning to lend again, house prices beginning to pick up again, but economic recovery has not been felt by many yet. But no president could have "repaired the damage that he found in just four years." Clinton mentions cutting greenhouse gas emissions! Student loan reform: fixed low percentage of income for up to 20 years. It means that college graduates can still take low-paying jobs like teaching or police work.
Clinton explains parts of health care law which have already gone into effect, e.g. extended family coverage for young people, insurance for people with preexisting conditions soon to arrive, 80-85% of health care premiums required to go to payer's health care instead of to company profits or premiums. "Raid" on Medicare was no such thing; it was a reappropriation of money that was being misused by health care providers to close a loophole. (I don't know what that means precisely either.) Says that under Romney's proposed policy, Medicare would end in 2016 due to bankruptcy. Seriously criticizes proposed cuts to Medicaid: nursing home care, care for people with disabilities — autism, Down's syndrome, etc. — as well as services to poor people will be diminished.
Rebuts welfare work requirement (which Clinton helped legislate into being) claims of Republican campaign ads, quotes Republican pollster who said that he wouldn't let the campaign be run by fact-checkers, jokes that "Finally I can say: 'that is true!'" About the economic plans in general, says that "arithmetic" is the distinguishing offering of the Democrats.
Then the speech ends, and Barack Obama comes out to shake hands and hug.
Elizabeth Warren, con'td.:
She "grew up on the ragged fringes of the middle class," her father was a maintenance man, her brothers went to the military and moved on to other jobs, she was a waitress at thirteen and then an elementary school teacher and now a mother and grandmother 'married to a great man.' Hails the opportunities of America. A bit of agitation against "Wall Street CEOs" who arrogantly demand taxpayer handouts despite their reckless handling of the economy resulting in terrible losses. Generally an argument for equal economic opportunity. "I got mine; the rest of you are on your own": her interpretation of the Republican ethos. 'Corporations are people': — I haven't written this down perfectly — 'no — people have hearts and they have children, they live and they love and they die; and that matters.' Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, survived by grace of President Obama's steadfast support in the face of enormous corporate opposition. No to "free ride" and "golden parachute." Main Street/Wall Street talk. She was a Methodist Sunday school teacher, too, and quotes "Inasmuch," which also cropped up in the Republican convention.
10:31 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa: introducing Bill Clinton, via a film treating him a little like a rock star and mentioning the Clinton Global Initiative as well as his presidency and its economic triumphs. High enthusiasm for Bill Clinton.
10:34 p.m. The man himself. Loud cheers for characterizing Obama as man who is "cool on the outside" but burning with fervour for America on the inside; and "after last night," the man "who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama." He recapitulates the dire picture which the Republican National Convention speakers drew of the Democratic economic philosophy, then says that "We're all in this together" is a better philosophy than the Republican "You're on your own."
Hate of far-right Republicans for Obama and some Democrats is in his opinion unprecedented. (Chelsea Clinton is there too!) Says that understandable frustration in hard times may make for good politics, but cooperation leads to good policy. Despite this extreme climate, Obama deserves encouragement because he is "still committed to constructive cooperation." Cheers for Joe Biden for his role in that cooperation. Praising Obamas' support for serving military, veterans and their families.
Criticizes prioritizing putting Obama out of work to putting people in work. Dissects Republican economic platform and says that is identical to or worse than Bush-era policy which got America into the current situation. Banks are beginning to lend again, house prices beginning to pick up again, but economic recovery has not been felt by many yet. But no president could have "repaired the damage that he found in just four years." Clinton mentions cutting greenhouse gas emissions! Student loan reform: fixed low percentage of income for up to 20 years. It means that college graduates can still take low-paying jobs like teaching or police work.
Clinton explains parts of health care law which have already gone into effect, e.g. extended family coverage for young people, insurance for people with preexisting conditions soon to arrive, 80-85% of health care premiums required to go to payer's health care instead of to company profits or premiums. "Raid" on Medicare was no such thing; it was a reappropriation of money that was being misused by health care providers to close a loophole. (I don't know what that means precisely either.) Says that under Romney's proposed policy, Medicare would end in 2016 due to bankruptcy. Seriously criticizes proposed cuts to Medicaid: nursing home care, care for people with disabilities — autism, Down's syndrome, etc. — as well as services to poor people will be diminished.
Rebuts welfare work requirement (which Clinton helped legislate into being) claims of Republican campaign ads, quotes Republican pollster who said that he wouldn't let the campaign be run by fact-checkers, jokes that "Finally I can say: 'that is true!'" About the economic plans in general, says that "arithmetic" is the distinguishing offering of the Democrats.
Then the speech ends, and Barack Obama comes out to shake hands and hug.
My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part IV
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
8:42 p.m. Sister Simone Campbell, nun who is travelling while protesting Ryan budget on behalf of fellow Catholics. Cites Council of American Bishops' disapproval. "We are all responsible for one another. I am my sister's keeper. I am my brother's keeper." Says that poor people who are struggling to support themselves need help; they should not starve, and they should not die of undiagnosed conditions because they don't have the funds to visit a doctor. "This is part of my pro-life stance, and the right thing to do." "Listen to one another, rather than yell at each other," she says at a very loud volume. I find it kind of friendly and, I guess, organic when non-politician speakers make little errors in following the teleprompter and don't pause when the audience drowns them out.
8:50 p.m. Cheers greet the governor of Delaware, Jack Markell, who begins by hailing Joe Biden. Talks somewhat oxymoron-ically about Mitt Romney's 'roots.' Says he is a businessman, too; was at Nextel (and later at Comcast) and is a self-declared capitalist and believer in private equity (like Bain Capital's work); but he believes one should learn the right lessons. Romney concentrated on the wellbeing of his shareholders, and therefore focused on the bottom line; but in government this approach is detrimental. And outsourced jobs and unemployment when companies are driven out of business are a huge problem for others. I found this kind of convincing.
8:58 p.m. Karen Mills, Mainer of the Small Business Administration. She's a little like a besuited professional in a commercial and makes as many hand gestures as our very own Chancellor Merkel. She seems to be emphasizing that the Obama government is not nannying small businesses, but simply improving the ambient conditions so that they can thrive.
(Film which I missed due to Nutella bread break. *N.B. I am not paid to advertise a certain chocolate-hazelnut spread.*)
9:05 pm. Chipper craft beer brewer from Virginia, Bill Butcher, speaks in praise of Obama's measures for small businesses.
9:07 p.m. "California's State Attorney, Kamala Harris." Talks about the legal fundament of America and its ideal role in preventing the kind of activity which leads to financial crises, denial of rights. She says that letting mortgage foreclosures run their course, as Romney apparently suggested, 'is. not. leadership.' Refers to credit card company regulations to keep gratuitous fees in check. Speaks for American Dream.
Film on immigration. Obama thinks letting illegal immigrants' children nationalize is also 'good for our security.'
9:16 p.m. Benita Veliz, graduated student, speaking in favour of Dream Act. She introduces:
8:42 p.m. Sister Simone Campbell, nun who is travelling while protesting Ryan budget on behalf of fellow Catholics. Cites Council of American Bishops' disapproval. "We are all responsible for one another. I am my sister's keeper. I am my brother's keeper." Says that poor people who are struggling to support themselves need help; they should not starve, and they should not die of undiagnosed conditions because they don't have the funds to visit a doctor. "This is part of my pro-life stance, and the right thing to do." "Listen to one another, rather than yell at each other," she says at a very loud volume. I find it kind of friendly and, I guess, organic when non-politician speakers make little errors in following the teleprompter and don't pause when the audience drowns them out.
8:50 p.m. Cheers greet the governor of Delaware, Jack Markell, who begins by hailing Joe Biden. Talks somewhat oxymoron-ically about Mitt Romney's 'roots.' Says he is a businessman, too; was at Nextel (and later at Comcast) and is a self-declared capitalist and believer in private equity (like Bain Capital's work); but he believes one should learn the right lessons. Romney concentrated on the wellbeing of his shareholders, and therefore focused on the bottom line; but in government this approach is detrimental. And outsourced jobs and unemployment when companies are driven out of business are a huge problem for others. I found this kind of convincing.
8:58 p.m. Karen Mills, Mainer of the Small Business Administration. She's a little like a besuited professional in a commercial and makes as many hand gestures as our very own Chancellor Merkel. She seems to be emphasizing that the Obama government is not nannying small businesses, but simply improving the ambient conditions so that they can thrive.
(Film which I missed due to Nutella bread break. *N.B. I am not paid to advertise a certain chocolate-hazelnut spread.*)
9:05 pm. Chipper craft beer brewer from Virginia, Bill Butcher, speaks in praise of Obama's measures for small businesses.
9:07 p.m. "California's State Attorney, Kamala Harris." Talks about the legal fundament of America and its ideal role in preventing the kind of activity which leads to financial crises, denial of rights. She says that letting mortgage foreclosures run their course, as Romney apparently suggested, 'is. not. leadership.' Refers to credit card company regulations to keep gratuitous fees in check. Speaks for American Dream.
Film on immigration. Obama thinks letting illegal immigrants' children nationalize is also 'good for our security.'
9:16 p.m. Benita Veliz, graduated student, speaking in favour of Dream Act. She introduces:
My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part III
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
Film with Obama speech about changes in health care, and about women's choices in their contraception.
8:05 p.m. Elizabeth Bruce has endometriosis, was tentatively diagnosed by a nurse with Planned Parenthood after her doctors thought that her pain symptoms were only psychosomatic, and guided to a doctor who gave her an operation; thereby she was eventually able to have a daughter. Reaffirms importance of Planned Parenthood in providing women's health care for the poor.
8:08 p.m. Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood. Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, etc. focus on denying women's rights even though they are purportedly focused on the important question of the economy, she argues. Points to role of contraception in improving higher education rates and life expectancy since Planned Parenthood was founded in the previous century. Mad Men reference. 3 million people come for Planned Parenthood services annually. Mentions God. Contributes to the compendium of American folksy sayin's. Loud applause for her mother, Gov. Ann Richards, and she tears up a little, as do members of the audience; apparently she (the mother) was friends with Obama. Rather militaristic in her mannerisms, but indubitably staunch in upholding her causes.
8:17 p.m. Representin' elderly white men, although a trifle afflicted with the Boehner-tan (what Silvio Berlusconi might call bronzato), enthusiastically: Representative of Maryland and Democratic Whip, Steny Hoyer. Quotes Jesse Jackson, says that Republicans' priorities are out of order: these would rather see Obama out of office than address crucial problems in America. Says that Democrats' stimulus spending averted second Great Depression. Talks about a January where 800,000 jobs were lost — since this is in the wake of the Christmas commercial season where employment can be expected to peak, this is a little of a weaselly statistic, I think. Says that war expenditure is incompatible with fiscal responsibility. Paul Ryan fib mention by inference!!! He is wearing a flag pin. "God bless every American, and God bless all of you!" he concludes. Chant of "Four more years!" in the audience. Hoyer seems like he's a fun conversationalist.
Film: Vietnam War veteran and organizer of charity (Aleethia = 'truth' in Greek?) for wounded soldiers, from Virginia. In his opinion, Obama cares; "you can hear it in his voice when he says: 'Welcome home.'"
8:28 p.m. The veteran, Ed Meagher, speaks, about helping veterans not to feel ostracized for their visible injuries and their military careers generally. Refers to G.I. Bill, which I think was also a Republican initiative (McCain?). Mentions risk of suicide, which I think is kind of brave since it's evidently not a visible and not necessarily a socially accepted injury.
8:31 p.m. Eric Shinseki, General (ret.) and Veteran Affairs Secretary. Admires Obama's "devotion to veterans," says that they bonded over World War II service of their parents' generation. 'Finest military in the world.' Mentions 'warriors,' which always makes me think of Mel Gibson in furs askew and big blue stripes on his face, going "rawrrr" and fumbling with a sword whilst running on a hill with his fellow Celts. Talks about 'historic expansion of treatment for PTSD and traumatic brain injury.' Probably not enough, though, since I have read articles about how unsupportive the military still is about "shell-shock." "President Obama is determined that we will repay our debt to them. God bless our veterans! God bless our president!", etc.
8:35 p.m. Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper. The intro music really is strange. He talks about the wildfires and the tragedy in Aurora, a trifle too briskly in my opinion. Mentions 'bickering' again. Says that his state's Republicans work with him, unlike federal congressmen with Obama; pokes fun at Mitt Romney's tax return disclosure-lessness. Talks about improvement in tourism and agricultural exports and development of natural gas and environmental energy resources. Also, in beer industry. Says he was laid off in 1986 recession. Co-started a business. 'Like so many other businesses, it was not only me, it was we.' City development loan, investments from friends helped him. An example of communities coming together to help each other. Mother: single mother of four children, said that you can't control what comes at you, but you can control how you respond. Praises Obama for 'finding hope where there was none.' Shout-out for being "fellow skinny Democrat with a funny last name."
Film with Obama speech about changes in health care, and about women's choices in their contraception.
 |
| Cecile Richards at the 2011 Time 100 gala. April 27, 2011 by David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 Licence) Use maybe restricted due to personality rights. |
8:05 p.m. Elizabeth Bruce has endometriosis, was tentatively diagnosed by a nurse with Planned Parenthood after her doctors thought that her pain symptoms were only psychosomatic, and guided to a doctor who gave her an operation; thereby she was eventually able to have a daughter. Reaffirms importance of Planned Parenthood in providing women's health care for the poor.
8:08 p.m. Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood. Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, etc. focus on denying women's rights even though they are purportedly focused on the important question of the economy, she argues. Points to role of contraception in improving higher education rates and life expectancy since Planned Parenthood was founded in the previous century. Mad Men reference. 3 million people come for Planned Parenthood services annually. Mentions God. Contributes to the compendium of American folksy sayin's. Loud applause for her mother, Gov. Ann Richards, and she tears up a little, as do members of the audience; apparently she (the mother) was friends with Obama. Rather militaristic in her mannerisms, but indubitably staunch in upholding her causes.
8:17 p.m. Representin' elderly white men, although a trifle afflicted with the Boehner-tan (what Silvio Berlusconi might call bronzato), enthusiastically: Representative of Maryland and Democratic Whip, Steny Hoyer. Quotes Jesse Jackson, says that Republicans' priorities are out of order: these would rather see Obama out of office than address crucial problems in America. Says that Democrats' stimulus spending averted second Great Depression. Talks about a January where 800,000 jobs were lost — since this is in the wake of the Christmas commercial season where employment can be expected to peak, this is a little of a weaselly statistic, I think. Says that war expenditure is incompatible with fiscal responsibility. Paul Ryan fib mention by inference!!! He is wearing a flag pin. "God bless every American, and God bless all of you!" he concludes. Chant of "Four more years!" in the audience. Hoyer seems like he's a fun conversationalist.
Film: Vietnam War veteran and organizer of charity (Aleethia = 'truth' in Greek?) for wounded soldiers, from Virginia. In his opinion, Obama cares; "you can hear it in his voice when he says: 'Welcome home.'"
8:28 p.m. The veteran, Ed Meagher, speaks, about helping veterans not to feel ostracized for their visible injuries and their military careers generally. Refers to G.I. Bill, which I think was also a Republican initiative (McCain?). Mentions risk of suicide, which I think is kind of brave since it's evidently not a visible and not necessarily a socially accepted injury.
8:31 p.m. Eric Shinseki, General (ret.) and Veteran Affairs Secretary. Admires Obama's "devotion to veterans," says that they bonded over World War II service of their parents' generation. 'Finest military in the world.' Mentions 'warriors,' which always makes me think of Mel Gibson in furs askew and big blue stripes on his face, going "rawrrr" and fumbling with a sword whilst running on a hill with his fellow Celts. Talks about 'historic expansion of treatment for PTSD and traumatic brain injury.' Probably not enough, though, since I have read articles about how unsupportive the military still is about "shell-shock." "President Obama is determined that we will repay our debt to them. God bless our veterans! God bless our president!", etc.
8:35 p.m. Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper. The intro music really is strange. He talks about the wildfires and the tragedy in Aurora, a trifle too briskly in my opinion. Mentions 'bickering' again. Says that his state's Republicans work with him, unlike federal congressmen with Obama; pokes fun at Mitt Romney's tax return disclosure-lessness. Talks about improvement in tourism and agricultural exports and development of natural gas and environmental energy resources. Also, in beer industry. Says he was laid off in 1986 recession. Co-started a business. 'Like so many other businesses, it was not only me, it was we.' City development loan, investments from friends helped him. An example of communities coming together to help each other. Mother: single mother of four children, said that you can't control what comes at you, but you can control how you respond. Praises Obama for 'finding hope where there was none.' Shout-out for being "fellow skinny Democrat with a funny last name."
My Notes of Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day, Part II
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
6:04 p.m. Delegate Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico, with a lovely Italian? flow of tongue, speaking about the economy and now about immigration reform. Obama is striving to "reduce the deficit in a balanced way." He adds that he knows that Obama will stand with his people (Puerto Ricans, I think), and he concludes, "God bless America."
6:08 p.m. Congressman Steve Israel, New York's 2nd District. I'm taking a break for the sake of nourishment.
6:14 p.m. Patty Murray, senator from Washington State. Very enthusiastic contingent of her fellow statespeople. Had military father with multiple sclerosis, family relied on mother for income. She (her mother) was in a worker training programme, had to raise them on food stamps, and sacrifice. President Obama has seen similar experiences. 'Middle class and everyone working to get into it': second reference. Somewhat labyrinthine analogy of middle class to the hapless dog who had a long and uncomfortable ride on top of the Romneys' car to Canada in the 80s. [A somewhat TMI account in the Boston Globe: "Journeys of a shared life", June 27, 2007.]
Short film about energy. Oil, wind, geothermal. Definitely prefer listening to Obama speech clips, because of their kind of snappier and more immediate nature compared to Romney's, I think. Wind industry represents 75,000 jobs. Ryan-Romney budget would shut down much of green energy industry? 'Home-grown energy. That's what we're fighting for.'
[Here is a much better article on the Republican Party's platform for green energy and science generally than I could write:
"Republican Party Platform Has a Lot to Say About Science," by David Malakoff, August 29, 2012, from Science Magazine's website.
The platform itself isn't clear, as far as I can interpret, about how the alternative energy industry is to be fostered by the government; it does sound like it wants to let the industry alone so that the free hand of market can sort it out like God sorts us out at the Pearly Gates, and it does tentatively suggest that 'partnerships between traditional energy industries and emerging renewable industries can be a central component in meeting the nation's long-term needs.']
6:23 p.m. The Democratic convention definitely has more eclectic music to introduce the speakers. Tom Steyer, of Farallon Capital Management. Criticism: dependence on foreign oil and effluence of taxpayer monies to oil companies, which would be promoted by Romney. He believes in long-term thinking, to out-think and out-hustle and out-innovate other countries. 'Let's embrace the vision of a clean, healthy Earth, which God gave us' instead of 'scorched Earth.' He seemed kind of nice.
6:29 p.m. Official photograph. Everyone has to stand really still for a time lapse photo, for a minute. A very long minute. The instructions to the audience made it sound like the beginning of a mass hypnotism session.
6:33 p.m. Senator Chuck Schumer, New York State, refers to Bill Clinton. Schumer's father ran a small business, namely an exterminating company, 'which may explain why we always associated the smell of roach spray with love.' All right? :) Lots of digs against G.W. Bush. His tax cuts for millionaires 'exploded our deficits.' Schumer himself had, I think, $360,000 in personal wealth (this excludes houses and any "asset that does not generate income"), according to Roll Call, at the outset of the 111th Congress (January 3, 2009 - January 3, 2011). So I guess he is qualified as a speaker on not being a millionaire. Now he is hammering Mitt Romney for having a life experience that is too "rarefied" and 'narrow,' and for sending jobs overseas. Hailing Obama's security arrangements provided to Israel, 'toughest sanctions ever' in history against Iran to counter threat of nuclear weapons development.
Speaking on behalf of Congressional Black Caucus to protest against Voter ID laws.
6:44 p.m. (roughly) Texas's 9th District Representative Al Green. Leads cheers of "U-S-A." I feel happier imagining myself in the days where U-S-A was something that Homer Simpson said in what I thought was a sports stadium chant, not so much nationalist as vaguely triumphant.
6:48 p.m. Missouri's congressional representative Emanuel Cleaver, talking about bickering, rather too late for much of the convention, which has had much bickering regarding Romney et al. and amongst it also some enjoyable bickering. But he is criticizing Congress and disdain for Democrats and 'progressives' and 'liberals.' '[. . .] make no mistake: I am proud to be a Democrat!' He says that Obama should not be 'lampooned' for having hope. "Hope on!" he yells, and repeats the chant. If hope inspires and powers us, we should welcome it. He jokes about the Democrats' reputation for finicky inclusiveness: a caucus for small congresspeople, a caucus for tall congresspeople, and a caucus for congresspeople who don't really fit into other categories. He will probably have an incredibly sore throat after this. "We are one!" he concludes, no matter how we look like or anything else. The crowd is happily roaring along.
6:59 p.m. Connecticut's governor Dan Malloy. Arguing against Romney-Ryan budget again. 'It isn't conservative. It's harsh, it's radical, and it's wrong.' It will unravel the economic policies of every president back to FDR, thus leading to summary demise of this fair nation. He contrasts voter ID laws to Connecticut's expansion of the franchise by making registration easier or something. He also brings up women's rights, especially since his wife has worked for a rape crisis centre. 'Your sister, your mother, your daughter — let's stand for them!' Paints picture of America which does not discriminate against women, immigrants, gay people, or anybody.
7:05 p.m. Rich Trumka, President of AFL-CIO, 3rd-generation coal miner from Nemacolin, Pennsylvania. Declares that 'Romney doesn't know anything about hard work and responsibility.' When we get home from the convention, he points out, workers will be cleaning things up; we should thank them and it will leave us feeling good afterwards. "Shared prosperity is the only kind that lasts" (uh-oh, kind of socialist!). Republican convention failed to give credit to the workers who helped build their businesses (by my reckoning, this is in fact true). The "old-fashioned way" to enter the middle class: "hard work, fairly rewarded."
7:11 p.m. Denise Juneau from Montana: superintendent for public instruction, "first Native American woman in history to win a statewide election" — Wikipedia says, first in her state. Thanks her teachers, for helping her to go to Harvard and get a law degree at university in Montana. Touches on Native American status in the US, says that American Dream is sought by Indians, too. Obama became adopted member of Crow nation, she reminds us, named "One who helps people throughout the land."
American Dream film, which nods to House of Representatives Democrats, represented by the following speaker Nancy Pelosi. She says that jobs are an integral part of the American Dream, and "President Obama has focused on job creation from Day One." She mentions the military, and says that 'we must build the nation into one that is worthy of their sacrifice.' Besides she is setting up the election as a moral choice: for or against Medicare, for or against Social Security, for or against the rights of women, etc. Allusion to unhallowed influence of Citizens United in political campaign advertising. Vote for democracy . . . or for Romney and the Republican Party. !
7:27 p.m. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, talking about rural Americans: agriculture, military service, inspirational spirit of community. Refers to Obama's grandparents from Kansas. Says 'folks.' Believes that Obama is promoting agricultural exports and investing in the industry, also in biofuels and solar and wind power — 'not in the Middle East, but in America.' As the Agriculture Secretary, I guess he'd be reasonably informed. Jab at 'opportunists.'
Short film introducing lady congresswomen as a lady sings about the 'voice of women' and "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rocks the world." Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, Amy Klobuchar, Jeanne Shaheen, a congresswoman from North Carolina, Kirsten Gillibrand, etc., and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who takes to the microphone and is endearingly tiny. "As you can see, we come in different sizes," she quips. "We build families, businesses, and communities," she says, mentioning that she used to be a social worker in Baltimore. Job creation, affordable quality child care, growth of middle class are women's issues and priorities. "We know that every issue is a woman's issue," and equal pay "is an all-American issue." Thanks to President Obama, being a woman is "no longer a preexisting condition" for health insurance.
7:42 p.m. Arne Duncan, parent of children at public school (and Education Secretary), talking about education. Talking about rewarding good teachers, rather than firing bad ones as the Republican speakers I think did more or less directly. Trying to describe the effects which cuts in education would have, and describes these as financing tax cuts for the upper tax brackets if the Romney/Ryan budget comes to fruition. Education spending is an investment.
Film with Pell Grant recipient, who was enabled to go to college with it. It "changes my life in a way that people can't imagine."
7:49 p.m. (roughly) The recipient, Johanny Adams, comes to speak. "Gracias, Mami, por todo," she says (her mother held three jobs to pay for her children's living expenses). She is studying in Florida and is a newly naturalized citizen.
7:50 p.m. Jim Hunt of North Carolina, governor in 1977-85, and in 1993 to 2001. Talks about desegregation, building up the education system for instance by paying teachers more. "We should appreciate, we should respect them, and we should pay them well." Led to 'highest graduation rate in our history.' And 'in Obama we have a great leader who is rebuilding America.' Mentions specific education spending initiatives, for instance for historically black colleges, Pell Grants, keeping schools open through stimulus money. Cutting taxes and regulations will create jobs 'like magic' according to the Republicans' proposals, he says, nodding to the unflattering label "voodoo economics." North Carolina wasn't built up 'by magic' and 'magic' is not what America needs now, he concludes.
7:59 p.m. Jessica Sanchez and God's Appointed People choir. Snappy beat. Vibrato kind of interferes with in-tuneness. People besides the young people in the crowd are also dancing! Gentleman who is signing the lyrics for the hearing-impaired lip-synchs along rather endearingly. Jessica takes her leave, looking very pleased.
6:04 p.m. Delegate Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico, with a lovely Italian? flow of tongue, speaking about the economy and now about immigration reform. Obama is striving to "reduce the deficit in a balanced way." He adds that he knows that Obama will stand with his people (Puerto Ricans, I think), and he concludes, "God bless America."
6:08 p.m. Congressman Steve Israel, New York's 2nd District. I'm taking a break for the sake of nourishment.
6:14 p.m. Patty Murray, senator from Washington State. Very enthusiastic contingent of her fellow statespeople. Had military father with multiple sclerosis, family relied on mother for income. She (her mother) was in a worker training programme, had to raise them on food stamps, and sacrifice. President Obama has seen similar experiences. 'Middle class and everyone working to get into it': second reference. Somewhat labyrinthine analogy of middle class to the hapless dog who had a long and uncomfortable ride on top of the Romneys' car to Canada in the 80s. [A somewhat TMI account in the Boston Globe: "Journeys of a shared life", June 27, 2007.]
Short film about energy. Oil, wind, geothermal. Definitely prefer listening to Obama speech clips, because of their kind of snappier and more immediate nature compared to Romney's, I think. Wind industry represents 75,000 jobs. Ryan-Romney budget would shut down much of green energy industry? 'Home-grown energy. That's what we're fighting for.'
[Here is a much better article on the Republican Party's platform for green energy and science generally than I could write:
"Republican Party Platform Has a Lot to Say About Science," by David Malakoff, August 29, 2012, from Science Magazine's website.
The platform itself isn't clear, as far as I can interpret, about how the alternative energy industry is to be fostered by the government; it does sound like it wants to let the industry alone so that the free hand of market can sort it out like God sorts us out at the Pearly Gates, and it does tentatively suggest that 'partnerships between traditional energy industries and emerging renewable industries can be a central component in meeting the nation's long-term needs.']
6:23 p.m. The Democratic convention definitely has more eclectic music to introduce the speakers. Tom Steyer, of Farallon Capital Management. Criticism: dependence on foreign oil and effluence of taxpayer monies to oil companies, which would be promoted by Romney. He believes in long-term thinking, to out-think and out-hustle and out-innovate other countries. 'Let's embrace the vision of a clean, healthy Earth, which God gave us' instead of 'scorched Earth.' He seemed kind of nice.
6:29 p.m. Official photograph. Everyone has to stand really still for a time lapse photo, for a minute. A very long minute. The instructions to the audience made it sound like the beginning of a mass hypnotism session.
6:33 p.m. Senator Chuck Schumer, New York State, refers to Bill Clinton. Schumer's father ran a small business, namely an exterminating company, 'which may explain why we always associated the smell of roach spray with love.' All right? :) Lots of digs against G.W. Bush. His tax cuts for millionaires 'exploded our deficits.' Schumer himself had, I think, $360,000 in personal wealth (this excludes houses and any "asset that does not generate income"), according to Roll Call, at the outset of the 111th Congress (January 3, 2009 - January 3, 2011). So I guess he is qualified as a speaker on not being a millionaire. Now he is hammering Mitt Romney for having a life experience that is too "rarefied" and 'narrow,' and for sending jobs overseas. Hailing Obama's security arrangements provided to Israel, 'toughest sanctions ever' in history against Iran to counter threat of nuclear weapons development.
Speaking on behalf of Congressional Black Caucus to protest against Voter ID laws.
6:44 p.m. (roughly) Texas's 9th District Representative Al Green. Leads cheers of "U-S-A." I feel happier imagining myself in the days where U-S-A was something that Homer Simpson said in what I thought was a sports stadium chant, not so much nationalist as vaguely triumphant.
6:48 p.m. Missouri's congressional representative Emanuel Cleaver, talking about bickering, rather too late for much of the convention, which has had much bickering regarding Romney et al. and amongst it also some enjoyable bickering. But he is criticizing Congress and disdain for Democrats and 'progressives' and 'liberals.' '[. . .] make no mistake: I am proud to be a Democrat!' He says that Obama should not be 'lampooned' for having hope. "Hope on!" he yells, and repeats the chant. If hope inspires and powers us, we should welcome it. He jokes about the Democrats' reputation for finicky inclusiveness: a caucus for small congresspeople, a caucus for tall congresspeople, and a caucus for congresspeople who don't really fit into other categories. He will probably have an incredibly sore throat after this. "We are one!" he concludes, no matter how we look like or anything else. The crowd is happily roaring along.
6:59 p.m. Connecticut's governor Dan Malloy. Arguing against Romney-Ryan budget again. 'It isn't conservative. It's harsh, it's radical, and it's wrong.' It will unravel the economic policies of every president back to FDR, thus leading to summary demise of this fair nation. He contrasts voter ID laws to Connecticut's expansion of the franchise by making registration easier or something. He also brings up women's rights, especially since his wife has worked for a rape crisis centre. 'Your sister, your mother, your daughter — let's stand for them!' Paints picture of America which does not discriminate against women, immigrants, gay people, or anybody.
7:05 p.m. Rich Trumka, President of AFL-CIO, 3rd-generation coal miner from Nemacolin, Pennsylvania. Declares that 'Romney doesn't know anything about hard work and responsibility.' When we get home from the convention, he points out, workers will be cleaning things up; we should thank them and it will leave us feeling good afterwards. "Shared prosperity is the only kind that lasts" (uh-oh, kind of socialist!). Republican convention failed to give credit to the workers who helped build their businesses (by my reckoning, this is in fact true). The "old-fashioned way" to enter the middle class: "hard work, fairly rewarded."
7:11 p.m. Denise Juneau from Montana: superintendent for public instruction, "first Native American woman in history to win a statewide election" — Wikipedia says, first in her state. Thanks her teachers, for helping her to go to Harvard and get a law degree at university in Montana. Touches on Native American status in the US, says that American Dream is sought by Indians, too. Obama became adopted member of Crow nation, she reminds us, named "One who helps people throughout the land."
American Dream film, which nods to House of Representatives Democrats, represented by the following speaker Nancy Pelosi. She says that jobs are an integral part of the American Dream, and "President Obama has focused on job creation from Day One." She mentions the military, and says that 'we must build the nation into one that is worthy of their sacrifice.' Besides she is setting up the election as a moral choice: for or against Medicare, for or against Social Security, for or against the rights of women, etc. Allusion to unhallowed influence of Citizens United in political campaign advertising. Vote for democracy . . . or for Romney and the Republican Party. !
7:27 p.m. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, talking about rural Americans: agriculture, military service, inspirational spirit of community. Refers to Obama's grandparents from Kansas. Says 'folks.' Believes that Obama is promoting agricultural exports and investing in the industry, also in biofuels and solar and wind power — 'not in the Middle East, but in America.' As the Agriculture Secretary, I guess he'd be reasonably informed. Jab at 'opportunists.'
Short film introducing lady congresswomen as a lady sings about the 'voice of women' and "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rocks the world." Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, Amy Klobuchar, Jeanne Shaheen, a congresswoman from North Carolina, Kirsten Gillibrand, etc., and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who takes to the microphone and is endearingly tiny. "As you can see, we come in different sizes," she quips. "We build families, businesses, and communities," she says, mentioning that she used to be a social worker in Baltimore. Job creation, affordable quality child care, growth of middle class are women's issues and priorities. "We know that every issue is a woman's issue," and equal pay "is an all-American issue." Thanks to President Obama, being a woman is "no longer a preexisting condition" for health insurance.
7:42 p.m. Arne Duncan, parent of children at public school (and Education Secretary), talking about education. Talking about rewarding good teachers, rather than firing bad ones as the Republican speakers I think did more or less directly. Trying to describe the effects which cuts in education would have, and describes these as financing tax cuts for the upper tax brackets if the Romney/Ryan budget comes to fruition. Education spending is an investment.
Film with Pell Grant recipient, who was enabled to go to college with it. It "changes my life in a way that people can't imagine."
7:49 p.m. (roughly) The recipient, Johanny Adams, comes to speak. "Gracias, Mami, por todo," she says (her mother held three jobs to pay for her children's living expenses). She is studying in Florida and is a newly naturalized citizen.
7:50 p.m. Jim Hunt of North Carolina, governor in 1977-85, and in 1993 to 2001. Talks about desegregation, building up the education system for instance by paying teachers more. "We should appreciate, we should respect them, and we should pay them well." Led to 'highest graduation rate in our history.' And 'in Obama we have a great leader who is rebuilding America.' Mentions specific education spending initiatives, for instance for historically black colleges, Pell Grants, keeping schools open through stimulus money. Cutting taxes and regulations will create jobs 'like magic' according to the Republicans' proposals, he says, nodding to the unflattering label "voodoo economics." North Carolina wasn't built up 'by magic' and 'magic' is not what America needs now, he concludes.
7:59 p.m. Jessica Sanchez and God's Appointed People choir. Snappy beat. Vibrato kind of interferes with in-tuneness. People besides the young people in the crowd are also dancing! Gentleman who is signing the lyrics for the hearing-impaired lip-synchs along rather endearingly. Jessica takes her leave, looking very pleased.
My Notes of Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day, Part I
N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
5:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time Antonio Villaraigosa, announced by a bilingual speaker who does his name justice, takes the stage. He is the mayor of Los Angeles.
Gov. Ted Strickland: Amendment to platform. Ordained united Methodist minister. President Obama: Jerusalem capital of Israel. Camera focuses on "Arab American"-wielding people. Loud shouts for and against. Mayor repeats vote. Mayor says 2/3 have voted in favour of the amendment. Bollocks.
(Guardian: "Democratic convention erupts over reinstatement of Jerusalem to policy," by Ewen MacAskill, September 6, 2012)
5:07 p.m. African Methodist Episcopal bishop Vashti McKenzie preaches against "sexism," etc. Much less god-y and more secular messages in the Democratic convention, I'd say. An impressively fiery lady, too.
ROTC Color Guard brings in the flags. Loud applause for Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, who recites the Pledge of Allegiance. Branford Marsalis performs the National Anthem on what looks like a straight saxophone. No sign of Bill Clinton as a duet partner. Kind of cheerful and valiant, piping singly into the large chamber, and very elegant.
Color Guard leaves the stage after chants of "U-S-A!" and to applause.
5:15 p.m. Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois's 4th District. "We are never more patriotic than when we see a group of people being treated unfairly and we say, 'Stop.'" June 17th: Obama offers amnesty for young children of illegal immigrant parents. "They are American in every way but on paper." But Romney wants illegal immigrants to self-deport, he says. Mitt Romney wants to 'turn their dreams into nightmares.' Harsh but perhaps accurate, and I wouldn't make Romney solely responsible for that attitude. Talks about American citizen, a soldier who has a 'beautiful immigrant son' with his wife, who had document issues. Unwisely talks about "mejor amiga" in proximity to "Janice Brewer," since it might be misheard as "whore." We should vote for Barack Obama to help him show that "freedom, equality are for all of us, all of the time."
5:21 p.m. Diana DeGette of Colorado's 1st District, Congresswoman. Talks about her daughters and how she wants to ensure that they are not "second class citizens." Nice western twang. Mentions pay gap between men and women: 1$ vs. 77 cents, addressed by Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Opposes Personhood Amendment including ban on embryonic stem cell research and abortion in cases of rape or incest and on in vitro fertilization, along with ordinary birth control and abortion — which has been proposed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, etc. Links women's Medicare to the economic needs of American citizens. She seems sincere and conscientiously concerned.
5:28 p.m. Enthusiastic reception for John Pérez, Speaker of the California State Assembly. He answers the question, "Who are we fighting for?" . . . People who are seeking opportunity and equality. In 2009, 'some people said, "let Detroit fail"' (N.B.: Nudge at Mitt Romney and his New York Times op-ed which a subeditor rather bluntly entitled: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." What he did write was, "In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check."); Obama didn't. Like Gutierrez, he talks about having "dignity and respect" for fellow people. "But we have a lot of work to do between now and then. So let's get to work! Thank you." He is, I've found out, also a union organizer and a cousin of Villaraigosa.
5:33 p.m. Boston, Massachusetts, mayor Tom Menino. He sounds very Massachusetts-y at moments, to a Mayor Quimby degree, with a soupçon of congressman Barney Frank. Bawston, jawb. Jabs at Mitt Romney. "In Boston, do you know what we call immigrants? Mom and dad. Do you know what we call same-sex couples? Our friends, our brothers, and our sisters." Pahtna = partner. Health care companies are supported by National Research (Council?), i.e. government, funds, he mentions in passing. Massachusetts apparently 47th out of the 50 states in terms of job creation under Romney; for instance, he "cut workforce training." Romney talks about "broken promises." "Well, he would know."
'It's time to keep moving forward. It's time to reelect Obama as president of the United States.'
5:40 p.m. California congresswoman — 32nd district — Judy Chu, granddaughter of Chinese immigrant. Voting, landowning, hiring discrimination against immigrants; but grandfather persisted and "worked 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, for decades." Obama wants to extend the opportunities for all people, ensure "college affordability" and "small business tax cuts" and "health care for all Americans." Obamacare = "President Obama cares," so she no longer resents that word. Romney hammered for Op-Ed again, Obama praised for 'saving auto industry.' Vouchers mean that there is no guarantee of medical insurance coverage. "President Obama cares about all Americans," "whether we're middle class or working hard to get there." That is a pretty grounded phrase and compares favourably to the Republican conventioneers, whose mantra, I thought, was rather that we may not all be rich, but many of us are working towards getting there.
5:47 p.m. Steve Westly, former California State Controller. Very shiny Silicon Valley person, helped organize eBay. The economy. "It's also about supporting the jobs for tomorrow," making US skilled workers competitive with China, etc. Making "especially math and science, a top priority." When it comes to education, 'We should be beating the rest of the world, not beating up on teachers.' Obama 'pledged to double American exports by 2015. By now, we're more than 50% of the way there.' Smarmy grins. Support for "partnerships between community colleges and businesses." Republican economists are out of touch with contemporary economy. 'Outsource' for Them, 'opensource' for Us. Mr. Westly has two children in public school, so there's that going for him in terms of ordinary-Americanness.
5:51 p.m. "Small Business" short film. Solar panel manufacturers! 'Small businesses create most of the new jobs in this country,' says Obama. Small business tax cuts under Obama administration mentioned again.
Representative John Larson, of Connecticut's 1st District. Seniors can pay up to $6,400 'out of their own pockets' to cover their own medical care, under Romney-Ryan plans. Sister Act-like reference to the nuns - Sisters of Notre Dame. He's 'on fire'! "God bless you! God bless America!"
6:00 p.m. Ken Myers: Deputy Sheriff, father, teamster, of Carroll County of Iowa. Talks about negotiation with armed man; 'thankfully, no one was hurt.' Republicans denouncing "teachers, firefighters, and cops" are denouncing this kind of work; prohibitions on collective bargaining like the ones imposed in Iowa and supported by Mitt Romney are impeding this kind of work; funding for the services, incl. bulletproof vests, ambulances, availability of backup for police first responders, etc. cut by nearly 20% in his state. First 9/11 reference.
5:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time Antonio Villaraigosa, announced by a bilingual speaker who does his name justice, takes the stage. He is the mayor of Los Angeles.
Gov. Ted Strickland: Amendment to platform. Ordained united Methodist minister. President Obama: Jerusalem capital of Israel. Camera focuses on "Arab American"-wielding people. Loud shouts for and against. Mayor repeats vote. Mayor says 2/3 have voted in favour of the amendment. Bollocks.
(Guardian: "Democratic convention erupts over reinstatement of Jerusalem to policy," by Ewen MacAskill, September 6, 2012)
5:07 p.m. African Methodist Episcopal bishop Vashti McKenzie preaches against "sexism," etc. Much less god-y and more secular messages in the Democratic convention, I'd say. An impressively fiery lady, too.
ROTC Color Guard brings in the flags. Loud applause for Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, who recites the Pledge of Allegiance. Branford Marsalis performs the National Anthem on what looks like a straight saxophone. No sign of Bill Clinton as a duet partner. Kind of cheerful and valiant, piping singly into the large chamber, and very elegant.
Color Guard leaves the stage after chants of "U-S-A!" and to applause.
5:15 p.m. Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois's 4th District. "We are never more patriotic than when we see a group of people being treated unfairly and we say, 'Stop.'" June 17th: Obama offers amnesty for young children of illegal immigrant parents. "They are American in every way but on paper." But Romney wants illegal immigrants to self-deport, he says. Mitt Romney wants to 'turn their dreams into nightmares.' Harsh but perhaps accurate, and I wouldn't make Romney solely responsible for that attitude. Talks about American citizen, a soldier who has a 'beautiful immigrant son' with his wife, who had document issues. Unwisely talks about "mejor amiga" in proximity to "Janice Brewer," since it might be misheard as "whore." We should vote for Barack Obama to help him show that "freedom, equality are for all of us, all of the time."
5:21 p.m. Diana DeGette of Colorado's 1st District, Congresswoman. Talks about her daughters and how she wants to ensure that they are not "second class citizens." Nice western twang. Mentions pay gap between men and women: 1$ vs. 77 cents, addressed by Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Opposes Personhood Amendment including ban on embryonic stem cell research and abortion in cases of rape or incest and on in vitro fertilization, along with ordinary birth control and abortion — which has been proposed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, etc. Links women's Medicare to the economic needs of American citizens. She seems sincere and conscientiously concerned.
5:28 p.m. Enthusiastic reception for John Pérez, Speaker of the California State Assembly. He answers the question, "Who are we fighting for?" . . . People who are seeking opportunity and equality. In 2009, 'some people said, "let Detroit fail"' (N.B.: Nudge at Mitt Romney and his New York Times op-ed which a subeditor rather bluntly entitled: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." What he did write was, "In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check."); Obama didn't. Like Gutierrez, he talks about having "dignity and respect" for fellow people. "But we have a lot of work to do between now and then. So let's get to work! Thank you." He is, I've found out, also a union organizer and a cousin of Villaraigosa.
5:33 p.m. Boston, Massachusetts, mayor Tom Menino. He sounds very Massachusetts-y at moments, to a Mayor Quimby degree, with a soupçon of congressman Barney Frank. Bawston, jawb. Jabs at Mitt Romney. "In Boston, do you know what we call immigrants? Mom and dad. Do you know what we call same-sex couples? Our friends, our brothers, and our sisters." Pahtna = partner. Health care companies are supported by National Research (Council?), i.e. government, funds, he mentions in passing. Massachusetts apparently 47th out of the 50 states in terms of job creation under Romney; for instance, he "cut workforce training." Romney talks about "broken promises." "Well, he would know."
'It's time to keep moving forward. It's time to reelect Obama as president of the United States.'
5:40 p.m. California congresswoman — 32nd district — Judy Chu, granddaughter of Chinese immigrant. Voting, landowning, hiring discrimination against immigrants; but grandfather persisted and "worked 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, for decades." Obama wants to extend the opportunities for all people, ensure "college affordability" and "small business tax cuts" and "health care for all Americans." Obamacare = "President Obama cares," so she no longer resents that word. Romney hammered for Op-Ed again, Obama praised for 'saving auto industry.' Vouchers mean that there is no guarantee of medical insurance coverage. "President Obama cares about all Americans," "whether we're middle class or working hard to get there." That is a pretty grounded phrase and compares favourably to the Republican conventioneers, whose mantra, I thought, was rather that we may not all be rich, but many of us are working towards getting there.
5:47 p.m. Steve Westly, former California State Controller. Very shiny Silicon Valley person, helped organize eBay. The economy. "It's also about supporting the jobs for tomorrow," making US skilled workers competitive with China, etc. Making "especially math and science, a top priority." When it comes to education, 'We should be beating the rest of the world, not beating up on teachers.' Obama 'pledged to double American exports by 2015. By now, we're more than 50% of the way there.' Smarmy grins. Support for "partnerships between community colleges and businesses." Republican economists are out of touch with contemporary economy. 'Outsource' for Them, 'opensource' for Us. Mr. Westly has two children in public school, so there's that going for him in terms of ordinary-Americanness.
5:51 p.m. "Small Business" short film. Solar panel manufacturers! 'Small businesses create most of the new jobs in this country,' says Obama. Small business tax cuts under Obama administration mentioned again.
Representative John Larson, of Connecticut's 1st District. Seniors can pay up to $6,400 'out of their own pockets' to cover their own medical care, under Romney-Ryan plans. Sister Act-like reference to the nuns - Sisters of Notre Dame. He's 'on fire'! "God bless you! God bless America!"
6:00 p.m. Ken Myers: Deputy Sheriff, father, teamster, of Carroll County of Iowa. Talks about negotiation with armed man; 'thankfully, no one was hurt.' Republicans denouncing "teachers, firefighters, and cops" are denouncing this kind of work; prohibitions on collective bargaining like the ones imposed in Iowa and supported by Mitt Romney are impeding this kind of work; funding for the services, incl. bulletproof vests, ambulances, availability of backup for police first responders, etc. cut by nearly 20% in his state. First 9/11 reference.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Alternative Pastimes to Sticking Pins in One's Self
It's a Thursday morning and so I am sitting in the bookshop with my nose buried in this laptop.
Yesterday night I began to watch the Republican convention's second day (not including the first day which essentially did not take place because of Tropical Storm Isaac), but I then decided that my time would be much better spent reading a romance novel.
THE PROBLEM is that there was a great deal of hypocrisy, criticizing the President for problems of the Republican congressmen and voters themselves. Later on, according to the reports that I've read, Paul Ryan also said a good deal of things which simply weren't true; so it seems that I really didn't miss much worth hearing.
For instance, when I think of exorbitant spending I think of the Bush-era military sending planes to Afghanistan with pallets full of dollar bills which amount to billions of dollars — which then disappear; and invading Iraq in the absence of any threat to the US from that quarter. Whereas the criticisms of government spending under the Obama presidency are, in fact, criticizing worthwhile and necessary projects like social security, health care funding, and keeping the American-based car manufacturing industry working. Why are the Republicans complaining about this now when this would so clearly have been better applied and undeniably effective during the Bush presidency (they are, after all, still in the majority in the House of Representatives, and profit from a divided Democratic congress)?
I came across a handy graph which showed — and I can't believe this is true — that the tax cuts which were introduced under George W. Bush are in fact a greater contributor of public debt than all of our wars in the past decade. It is the Republican Party who are refusing to allow these cuts to be even partially repealed. I know that debt is calculated two ways — private debt and government debt — so I haven't sorted out yet what the graph precisely means, but this seems pretty egregious.
***
Yesterday night I began to watch the Republican convention's second day (not including the first day which essentially did not take place because of Tropical Storm Isaac), but I then decided that my time would be much better spent reading a romance novel.
THE PROBLEM is that there was a great deal of hypocrisy, criticizing the President for problems of the Republican congressmen and voters themselves. Later on, according to the reports that I've read, Paul Ryan also said a good deal of things which simply weren't true; so it seems that I really didn't miss much worth hearing.
For instance, when I think of exorbitant spending I think of the Bush-era military sending planes to Afghanistan with pallets full of dollar bills which amount to billions of dollars — which then disappear; and invading Iraq in the absence of any threat to the US from that quarter. Whereas the criticisms of government spending under the Obama presidency are, in fact, criticizing worthwhile and necessary projects like social security, health care funding, and keeping the American-based car manufacturing industry working. Why are the Republicans complaining about this now when this would so clearly have been better applied and undeniably effective during the Bush presidency (they are, after all, still in the majority in the House of Representatives, and profit from a divided Democratic congress)?
I came across a handy graph which showed — and I can't believe this is true — that the tax cuts which were introduced under George W. Bush are in fact a greater contributor of public debt than all of our wars in the past decade. It is the Republican Party who are refusing to allow these cuts to be even partially repealed. I know that debt is calculated two ways — private debt and government debt — so I haven't sorted out yet what the graph precisely means, but this seems pretty egregious.
***
Friday, August 24, 2012
Pronounsical Adventures
Today we had (beginning at 9:30 a.m., which is groaningly early compared to the 10:15ish times we've had) an exam review session in my Greek class. Needless to say, it was loads of fun to learn indefinite pronouns and prepositions (hopefully my translation of the grammatical nomenclature is correct) as well as the noun group which includes the word grammatéas.* So I am sharing the wealth and imparting to you what I should be engraving in my cranium for future reference: *secretary
Taken from Giorgos Babinioti's Elliniki Glossa, Chapter 14.
(Ληφθεί από το "Ελληνική Γλώσσα" του Γεώργιου Μπαμπινιώτη, στο ενότητα 14.
This field of highflown expression within the translational art, Greek-to-English, remains in a highly experimental stage.)
Indefinite adjectival pronouns:
1. Κάποιος = somebody, some [person]
Feminine singular: κάποια, Neuter singular: κάποιο
Declined like the paradigmatic adjective νέ -ος, -α, -ο)
Example: Somebody rang the bell.; OR At the party I met someone.
2. Κανένας OR κανείς = anyone
Feminine singular: καμία (it's a little hoity-toitier to put the emphasis on the ι instead of the α after it), Neuter singular: κανένα
Κανείς stays the same, but it's kanén -as, -os (genitive), -an (accusative); kamía, kamías, kamía; kanéna, kanenós, kanéna.
Example: Did anyone call you? OR No, nobody called you.
3. Μερικοί = several, a couple of
Feminine plural: μερικές, Neuter plural: μερικά
Declined merikoí, merikón, merikoús; merikés, merikón, merikés; meriká, merikón, meriká.
[Italics indicate an omega instead of an omicron.]
Example: The eyes of some (/ a couple of) men are very lovely.
(That was the textbook's first example, so I went with it . . .)
***
Though we haven't even gotten around to the prepositions and nouns, I've run out of, er, enthusiasm. (c:
The exam will take place on Monday. — Ο όνειδος θα πραγματοποιηθεί τη Δευτέρα.
Taken from Giorgos Babinioti's Elliniki Glossa, Chapter 14.
(Ληφθεί από το "Ελληνική Γλώσσα" του Γεώργιου Μπαμπινιώτη, στο ενότητα 14.
This field of highflown expression within the translational art, Greek-to-English, remains in a highly experimental stage.)
Indefinite adjectival pronouns:
1. Κάποιος = somebody, some [person]
Feminine singular: κάποια, Neuter singular: κάποιο
Declined like the paradigmatic adjective νέ -ος, -α, -ο)
Example: Somebody rang the bell.; OR At the party I met someone.
2. Κανένας OR κανείς = anyone
Feminine singular: καμία (it's a little hoity-toitier to put the emphasis on the ι instead of the α after it), Neuter singular: κανένα
Κανείς stays the same, but it's kanén -as, -os (genitive), -an (accusative); kamía, kamías, kamía; kanéna, kanenós, kanéna.
Example: Did anyone call you? OR No, nobody called you.
3. Μερικοί = several, a couple of
Feminine plural: μερικές, Neuter plural: μερικά
Declined merikoí, merikón, merikoús; merikés, merikón, merikés; meriká, merikón, meriká.
[Italics indicate an omega instead of an omicron.]
Example: The eyes of some (/ a couple of) men are very lovely.
(That was the textbook's first example, so I went with it . . .)
***
Though we haven't even gotten around to the prepositions and nouns, I've run out of, er, enthusiasm. (c:
The exam will take place on Monday. — Ο όνειδος θα πραγματοποιηθεί τη Δευτέρα.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
An English Afternoon Tea
Since it is my mother's birthday, we decided to make an English afternoon tea, which she has suggested every now and then as an idea for dinner, but which I'd been dodging due to a frustrating experience with scone-baking.
First of all, however, Ge. and I went on a leisurely stroll to Tempelhofer Feld. It was a stifling atmosphere when we emerged from the cool apartment and stairwell, and I thought that it might have been wise to wear sunscreen, since it was around 1 o'clock and "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines." But there were leisurely fields of clouds, too; as the Bard noted, "And often is his gold complexion dimm'd." Besides there was a breeze.
Then, at the invitation of Mama, I went to the bookshop to pick up my Farsi-German dictionary. In the front of the book it was helpfully that written Farsi consists of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, as well as four more; so I was pleased to find that it looked familiar and also interested that the letter names (shin, for instance) are sometimes like Hebrew ones. Then Mama and I talked outside, with little glasses of mallow tea and a saucerful of pretzels and trail mix.
After that came the grand journey to Edeka for the groceries.
***
***
I made the cucumber sandwiches, as usual, by toasting white bread so that it would be firm on the outside and soft on the inside; cutting the bread lengthwise with a large bread knife so it is half as thick; buttering the insides of the toast carefully so that it protects the bread from sogginess; sprinkling salt and pepper on the two halves; placing thinly sliced cucumber between the halves; today, cutting the toast into four triangles.
For the radish sandwiches, I didn't cut the toast but left it thick, then butter and salt and pepper, then the sliced radishes. Since this household is fond of having liberal amounts of butter with radishes, I put a tiny dollop of butter on top of some of the sandwiches.
First of all, however, Ge. and I went on a leisurely stroll to Tempelhofer Feld. It was a stifling atmosphere when we emerged from the cool apartment and stairwell, and I thought that it might have been wise to wear sunscreen, since it was around 1 o'clock and "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines." But there were leisurely fields of clouds, too; as the Bard noted, "And often is his gold complexion dimm'd." Besides there was a breeze.
Then, at the invitation of Mama, I went to the bookshop to pick up my Farsi-German dictionary. In the front of the book it was helpfully that written Farsi consists of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, as well as four more; so I was pleased to find that it looked familiar and also interested that the letter names (shin, for instance) are sometimes like Hebrew ones. Then Mama and I talked outside, with little glasses of mallow tea and a saucerful of pretzels and trail mix.
After that came the grand journey to Edeka for the groceries.
***
The grand repast:
Platter, smoked salmon, gouda, cucumber sandwiches, radish sandwiches
Canadian wild sockeye salmon in rolls, with capers and horseradish on the side and eaten with dark bread; gouda in slices to be eaten with the same; cucumber sandwiches closed and radish sandwiches open-faced.
Ramekin of radishes
Glass dish of sliced cucumber
Scones
with
Lemon curd
Clotted cream
or
Orange marmalade
(which is made in England and which we, er, 'sourced' in the chain grocery store)
or
other
Orange pekoe
or
Assam tea
Red currants
Chocolate-marshmallow kisses
After Eight
Vanilla ice cream
Popsicles
Bilberry compôte
I made the cucumber sandwiches, as usual, by toasting white bread so that it would be firm on the outside and soft on the inside; cutting the bread lengthwise with a large bread knife so it is half as thick; buttering the insides of the toast carefully so that it protects the bread from sogginess; sprinkling salt and pepper on the two halves; placing thinly sliced cucumber between the halves; today, cutting the toast into four triangles.
For the radish sandwiches, I didn't cut the toast but left it thick, then butter and salt and pepper, then the sliced radishes. Since this household is fond of having liberal amounts of butter with radishes, I put a tiny dollop of butter on top of some of the sandwiches.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Probing an Examination and Pitiful Learning Endeavours
On Friday I took the day off from the bookshop and had a holiday-holiday, wherein I did pretty much nothing, and it was a very nice experience. Saturday and Sunday are relaxed in any case, so it was only this morning where I set off somewhere, namely to the university to write my Latin exam.
Last night I felt overcome with guilt for not preparing for the exam carefully. After the 'orare' thing I decided to try something else. So I began reviewing the textbook from last semester so that I could tell apart the declensions, conjugations, and parts of speech more swiftly and therefore finish the exam more swiftly. But I hadn't gotten far.
During a massive case of guilty anxiety, I tend to keep on reading things on the internet to keep my mind off of it late into the night, as the guilty feelings keep gnawing and gnawing away, conscious all the while that I should go to sleep soon and set the alarm clock so that I wake up in time. The process ends in my going to sleep in the early morning hours, 'worn to a frazzle.' This case of guilty anxiety was comparatively light but unpleasant per se.
I did not expect the Latin exam to be massively difficult in terms of vocabulary, but the syntax is a crapshoot; either I know what's going on or I don't, even after knowing what each word in a sentence means individually. So there wasn't so much more preparation I could do aside from finding a reputable side-by-side Latin-English text with accurate grammatical elucidations (which I don't expect to find easily) and gradually gathering experience with the differences between the languages (which would also take two or three months, I think). Which I didn't do.
After a shower and a little internet time I set off twenty minutes early, and therefore had plenty of time to reach the class and study more of the textbook. Since the confluence of students to the campus has diminished, the Nollendorfplatz-Krumme Lanke U-Bahn line has shortened trains now, so I awaited it at the front of the platform. At Dahlem Dorf station the strawberry vending shack was shuttered. In the streets between Dahlem Dorf and the Rostlaube there was no discernible difference in the quantity of people, though.
At the room where the exam was to take place, the door was locked and nobody was waiting in front. Overzealously I went to the Latin/Greek department to inquire, to be rightfully advised to wait in front of the room and hope that people would start coming by and by. So that was what happened, and after we had (presumably) all gathered, the professor showed and apologetically herded us to a different classroom wherein we wrote our exams. It was one sheet of paper, with a very slightly simplified text of Cicero wherein he brings the matter of Verres and Sthenius to the attention of all. To assist our feeble minds there were fortunately commas added into the text to separate the main and ancillary clauses, as well as a summary of events in German above the text; the professor even read out the text to us once so that we could hear the groupings of the words. And we were allowed to use our dictionaries. Nevertheless it was a task which took up at least an hour for me, and I was the first person done.
As soon as I got home I found a professional translation on the internet, and saw that I had made a key error but hopefully not one that obscured the elegance and fairly accurate nature of my text as a whole.
As one can tell from the self-praising tone of the previous sentence, I feel quite smug, not only because I came up with logical if inaccurate translations by the end, but particularly because I was also so happy that Latin is over for this first pair of semesters. It was a six o'clock to eight o'clock p.m. class which swallowed up even my Friday evenings in the first semester, riddled with naps as unslept nights avenged themselves, and on one hot evening made into an extra penance by my feeling sick for two hours straight. In one or two weeks' time I need to stop being smug, though; otherwise I won't learn from the mistakes I did make, and otherwise I'll have a nasty surprise once the marks are in. (c:
***
Aside from following current events exhaustively through my new overlord, Twitter; and reading books and other things for enjoyment; I am planning to go on long bicycle rides to explore Berlin. (I feel like cycling to the North Sea, though that wouldn't work since I'd be borrowing my brother's or mother's bike.)
As far as amateur journalism is concerned, it's been a relief to find that either the media have been on a good streak lately, or there really is a lot of profound and good stuff in existence as long as one strikes on a worthy publication. My crusading spirit has been a little appeased. I will say, though, that purely going from instinct I think that the reporting about Syria in the mass media has been completely misguided, and that the revolution going on now will be the absolute worst thing that could happen to the country and to American/European interests. While I supported even the invasion of Libya, I think that the situations in Tunisia and Egypt could have been solved better if they had been dissociated from each other entirely and not interfered with by Western interests; conversely I think that the suppression of protests in Bahrain was absolutely shameful and that here the moral equivocation of e.g. the EU was clear. Syria is something else altogether, and is being turned into a frontier of armed groups, government forces which are presumably splintering off to something else, local fighters, population groupings (e.g. the apparently de facto autonomous Kurds near the Turkish border), and intelligence agencies which is a wild west without any guarantees for civilians' security. Of course the massacres and mistreatment of children in custody must be investigated and legally prosecuted in Syria, but I think that it could be done under the existing government as long as the state military and police apparatus are held out of the investigations. Basher Assad is, at least, neither deranged nor bloodthirsty. As for Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, etc., I have absolutely no clue what is going on in those countries but I think we should have a clue.
Anyway, since I haven't been writing blog posts about these things, I have been weakly attempting to supplement my courses of university study until my bad conscience wears off.
One of these weak attempts is a learn-one-Arabic-word-per-day thing. Though I will not need Arabic for my specific Culture and History of the Near East programme, it seems like a waste of opportunity not to pick up a bit on the occasion. So I come across an Arabic phrase or word on the internet, copy and paste it into a translator to find out what it means, and write it down into a notebook; then I take each letter and copy and paste it individually to see what it looks like in its main form, to come up with a translation. The Arabic alphabet is full of phenomena like the Greek sigma, which looks like σ except if it is at the end of a word ς. So this way I am very, very slowly learning the alphabet as well as words like talib, Misr, and arabiy (I'm not too sure about the transliteration). But I feel like doing something adventurous and challenging and of having some kind of knowledge which is relatively rare rather than redundant, so I've ordered a Farsi textbook through the bookshop and have taken down the ISBN, etc., for a course in colloquial Urdu. We do have materials for learning Hebrew and Russian, too; but I worry that I will mix them up with Greek (I've already mixed up the 'Η' and 'Ν' at least once), whereas visually Arabic and Farsi look different. Besides the unsuccessfulness of past attempts at engraving the Hebrew alphabet on my memory is discouraging me a little; I remember what aleph and gimel look like and that's pretty much it.
Besides I want to read the Koran in Max Henning's German translation, and am presently bogged down in Annemarie Schimmel's quite valuable introduction. Even in the Bible I haven't read much at one stroke. One night in 2003ish when T. and I were collaborating on a Spanish project I had lots of free time and so tackled long segments of it, and another night I was trying to find out if Job's story was as senseless as it sounded (I decided to ignore it in my personal theology); and for some reason I was quite interested in the Book of Esther. In fact this may also be connected to the compulsion I felt to go to church again around that time — Mama was attending one and so I went along a couple weekends, before finding out that as usual the people and building and so on are distracting, and that I only become neurotic about things like eating fish on Good Friday rather than deepening the spirit of religion, so I don't feel good-er, if I go to church. In any case I don't consider theological texts easy reading. But it seems dumb to study Islamic Studies without reading the Koran, and I might need the knowledge of it in my Moorish Science Temple essay due October — it would be good to be able to discern the evidently great differences between the MST's religious text and the 'orthodox' Koran without needing to rely entirely on a scholarly treatment by someone else.
Last night I felt overcome with guilt for not preparing for the exam carefully. After the 'orare' thing I decided to try something else. So I began reviewing the textbook from last semester so that I could tell apart the declensions, conjugations, and parts of speech more swiftly and therefore finish the exam more swiftly. But I hadn't gotten far.
During a massive case of guilty anxiety, I tend to keep on reading things on the internet to keep my mind off of it late into the night, as the guilty feelings keep gnawing and gnawing away, conscious all the while that I should go to sleep soon and set the alarm clock so that I wake up in time. The process ends in my going to sleep in the early morning hours, 'worn to a frazzle.' This case of guilty anxiety was comparatively light but unpleasant per se.
I did not expect the Latin exam to be massively difficult in terms of vocabulary, but the syntax is a crapshoot; either I know what's going on or I don't, even after knowing what each word in a sentence means individually. So there wasn't so much more preparation I could do aside from finding a reputable side-by-side Latin-English text with accurate grammatical elucidations (which I don't expect to find easily) and gradually gathering experience with the differences between the languages (which would also take two or three months, I think). Which I didn't do.
After a shower and a little internet time I set off twenty minutes early, and therefore had plenty of time to reach the class and study more of the textbook. Since the confluence of students to the campus has diminished, the Nollendorfplatz-Krumme Lanke U-Bahn line has shortened trains now, so I awaited it at the front of the platform. At Dahlem Dorf station the strawberry vending shack was shuttered. In the streets between Dahlem Dorf and the Rostlaube there was no discernible difference in the quantity of people, though.
At the room where the exam was to take place, the door was locked and nobody was waiting in front. Overzealously I went to the Latin/Greek department to inquire, to be rightfully advised to wait in front of the room and hope that people would start coming by and by. So that was what happened, and after we had (presumably) all gathered, the professor showed and apologetically herded us to a different classroom wherein we wrote our exams. It was one sheet of paper, with a very slightly simplified text of Cicero wherein he brings the matter of Verres and Sthenius to the attention of all. To assist our feeble minds there were fortunately commas added into the text to separate the main and ancillary clauses, as well as a summary of events in German above the text; the professor even read out the text to us once so that we could hear the groupings of the words. And we were allowed to use our dictionaries. Nevertheless it was a task which took up at least an hour for me, and I was the first person done.
As soon as I got home I found a professional translation on the internet, and saw that I had made a key error but hopefully not one that obscured the elegance and fairly accurate nature of my text as a whole.
As one can tell from the self-praising tone of the previous sentence, I feel quite smug, not only because I came up with logical if inaccurate translations by the end, but particularly because I was also so happy that Latin is over for this first pair of semesters. It was a six o'clock to eight o'clock p.m. class which swallowed up even my Friday evenings in the first semester, riddled with naps as unslept nights avenged themselves, and on one hot evening made into an extra penance by my feeling sick for two hours straight. In one or two weeks' time I need to stop being smug, though; otherwise I won't learn from the mistakes I did make, and otherwise I'll have a nasty surprise once the marks are in. (c:
***
Aside from following current events exhaustively through my new overlord, Twitter; and reading books and other things for enjoyment; I am planning to go on long bicycle rides to explore Berlin. (I feel like cycling to the North Sea, though that wouldn't work since I'd be borrowing my brother's or mother's bike.)
As far as amateur journalism is concerned, it's been a relief to find that either the media have been on a good streak lately, or there really is a lot of profound and good stuff in existence as long as one strikes on a worthy publication. My crusading spirit has been a little appeased. I will say, though, that purely going from instinct I think that the reporting about Syria in the mass media has been completely misguided, and that the revolution going on now will be the absolute worst thing that could happen to the country and to American/European interests. While I supported even the invasion of Libya, I think that the situations in Tunisia and Egypt could have been solved better if they had been dissociated from each other entirely and not interfered with by Western interests; conversely I think that the suppression of protests in Bahrain was absolutely shameful and that here the moral equivocation of e.g. the EU was clear. Syria is something else altogether, and is being turned into a frontier of armed groups, government forces which are presumably splintering off to something else, local fighters, population groupings (e.g. the apparently de facto autonomous Kurds near the Turkish border), and intelligence agencies which is a wild west without any guarantees for civilians' security. Of course the massacres and mistreatment of children in custody must be investigated and legally prosecuted in Syria, but I think that it could be done under the existing government as long as the state military and police apparatus are held out of the investigations. Basher Assad is, at least, neither deranged nor bloodthirsty. As for Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, etc., I have absolutely no clue what is going on in those countries but I think we should have a clue.
Anyway, since I haven't been writing blog posts about these things, I have been weakly attempting to supplement my courses of university study until my bad conscience wears off.
One of these weak attempts is a learn-one-Arabic-word-per-day thing. Though I will not need Arabic for my specific Culture and History of the Near East programme, it seems like a waste of opportunity not to pick up a bit on the occasion. So I come across an Arabic phrase or word on the internet, copy and paste it into a translator to find out what it means, and write it down into a notebook; then I take each letter and copy and paste it individually to see what it looks like in its main form, to come up with a translation. The Arabic alphabet is full of phenomena like the Greek sigma, which looks like σ except if it is at the end of a word ς. So this way I am very, very slowly learning the alphabet as well as words like talib, Misr, and arabiy (I'm not too sure about the transliteration). But I feel like doing something adventurous and challenging and of having some kind of knowledge which is relatively rare rather than redundant, so I've ordered a Farsi textbook through the bookshop and have taken down the ISBN, etc., for a course in colloquial Urdu. We do have materials for learning Hebrew and Russian, too; but I worry that I will mix them up with Greek (I've already mixed up the 'Η' and 'Ν' at least once), whereas visually Arabic and Farsi look different. Besides the unsuccessfulness of past attempts at engraving the Hebrew alphabet on my memory is discouraging me a little; I remember what aleph and gimel look like and that's pretty much it.
Besides I want to read the Koran in Max Henning's German translation, and am presently bogged down in Annemarie Schimmel's quite valuable introduction. Even in the Bible I haven't read much at one stroke. One night in 2003ish when T. and I were collaborating on a Spanish project I had lots of free time and so tackled long segments of it, and another night I was trying to find out if Job's story was as senseless as it sounded (I decided to ignore it in my personal theology); and for some reason I was quite interested in the Book of Esther. In fact this may also be connected to the compulsion I felt to go to church again around that time — Mama was attending one and so I went along a couple weekends, before finding out that as usual the people and building and so on are distracting, and that I only become neurotic about things like eating fish on Good Friday rather than deepening the spirit of religion, so I don't feel good-er, if I go to church. In any case I don't consider theological texts easy reading. But it seems dumb to study Islamic Studies without reading the Koran, and I might need the knowledge of it in my Moorish Science Temple essay due October — it would be good to be able to discern the evidently great differences between the MST's religious text and the 'orthodox' Koran without needing to rely entirely on a scholarly treatment by someone else.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
The Peripatetic Future of the Gemäldegalerie?
The Frankfurt am Main-based daily newspaper FAZ, in a ringing denunciation of the relocation of Berlin's foremost collection of paintings by the old masters:
(Translated with the help of G*e Translate.)
***
There must be some compelling reason for this prima facie cheek of the highest order, but I haven't found one yet.
Ohne Not soll diese weltberühmte Gemäldesammlung, eines der kostbarsten Güter der Nation, Kernstück und Kronjuwel des preußischen Erbes, das im Jahrhundert der Katastrophen verborgen, verpackt, ausgelagert, geplündert, verschleppt und nach dem Krieg zerteilt wurde und erst nach 1989 seine glanzvolle Zusammenführung und Wiederauferstehung erlebte, nach nur vierzehn Jahren Dasein in einem maßgeschneiderten Neubau wieder eingepackt, zerschlagen, ins Depot verfrachtet und nur als Torso zwischen die Skulpturen des Bode-Museums geschoben werden.
— Eduard BeaucampIn the absence of any necessity, this world-famous collection of paintings — one of the most precious possessions of the nation; heart and crown jewel of the Prussian legacy; hidden in the century of catastrophes, packaged, outsourced, looted, kidnapped; and divided after the war; and only after 1989 experiencing its glorious reunion and resurrection — is to be, after only a fourteen years' existence in a custom-tailored building, packed up again, broken, freighted into storage and to be wedged as a scant torso in between the sculptures of the Bode Museum.
(Translated with the help of G*e Translate.)
***
There must be some compelling reason for this prima facie cheek of the highest order, but I haven't found one yet.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Pink Mousse, Yellow Cards and Feminism
After a long day at university, I have just eaten some of the windfall from a neighbourhood restaurant whose owners have gone on holiday, passed on to us by a second neighbour who can't possibly consume it all. Yesterday it was a slaw of cabbage, carrot, parsley, and fennel or celery stalk; tzatziki; and a dreamy cloud-like pink mousse which rumour declared contained a kind of fish and which most of us treated with respectful distance. Today it was a carton with a green bell pepper, eggplants and zucchinis, cucumbers, and a head of lettuce. So Mama sliced the eggplants and zucchinis, fried them in olive oil, and whoever wanted some had some.
Besides I have been able to try smoked almonds for the first time, thanks to our English aunt (as I like to think of her): the first three almonds are good; the fourth flips a switch where they become nearly irresistible.
***
À propos of nothing, the weather is kind of terrible. It is not uncommonly hot for this time of year — hardly impressive in fact in any way — but this degree of humidity drags one down like a gourmand albatross. Two days in a row one finds one's self covered in a fuzzy layer of moistness if one is cursed by the need to ride in the U-Bahn. (By 'one' I am obviously thinking of 'me.') I catnapped through much of the Latin lesson and admittedly found that it went by with rather enjoyable swiftness.
Over the weekend we had a lightning storm which raised the worry that someone somewhere in Berlin had offended God in a very thorough manner. I had managed to go to sleep by 2 a.m. perhaps when I was woken up by a series of tremendous tearing sounds from overhead which ripped away until they abruptly stopped, then there came great barely perceptible booms which echoed from the very foundations of the soil, and lightning so bright and so encompassing in its brightness that it was like daylight at dawn. There was torrential rain, too. I wasn't the only one who woke up in the family; the neighbours overhead were also thumping presumably to the window and back. It turns out (from the U-Bahn televisions' news on Monday), that there were 8000 lightning strikes and two fires — fortunately no injuries.
***
As for the Euro Cup final, I hadn't thought much of Italy's team from what I'd heard of it. I detested it with a fiery hatred after the World Cup 2006 final because of the Zidane-Materazzi incident and because I had the impression that most of the team were cheats and that the team captain had a Mussoliniesque fascist air. During the World Cup in 2010 I repented because they mounted so much of an effort in their final game. Now Materazzi is nowhere to be seen, I have a good impression of the team generally, and rightly or wrongly I thought their game against Germany (which at first I was convinced they'd justly lose) showed skill and also a fairly clean way of playing.
During the World Cup 2012 I hated, instead, Spain's and the Netherlands' teams. I didn't think much of the players's personalities — though I made an exception for Spain's goalkeeper and the head coach — and the style of playing on both teams was a contrast to the fireworks of talent, inspiration, and 'soul' which were shown even by teams which didn't make it to the finals. I probably made clear which teams I liked at the time — for instance Uruguay and Chile, except for the latter's foul-spree tendencies. But Brazil's team, except if I am overidealizing it, was the most impressive. One did have the idea that it was a remnant of glory past. But first of all the greater heights of the players gave them a kind of dignified movement and loftiness. Secondly the attitude toward the game was so different: not the product of training regimens it seemed so much as of living the sport from a very early age, so that much of the technique was in fact second nature and not calculation, and it felt as if they were in their element and didn't really need a coach telling them what to do. This is where, though I've come to like Spain's team much better, I object to Spain and the Netherlands' team (though it appears to have changed a little) and to a lesser degree to the German team, which plays with conscientious strategy but tends in my view to falter if they are losing instead of rising to the challenge and battling as well they can.
This quality of courage, I think, characterized Italy's playing in this year's final. After Thiago Motta left the field, it did fizzle, but considering what they did since it was clear from the outset that Spain had the upper hand, I thought it was good. The fouls were not too bad, and the diving was less melodrama and more naturalism. As for Spain, I thought that the third goal was one of the most uninteresting ones I've seen in my life, and didn't know why the goalscorer looked so pleased until I read that he has won the Golden Boot.
So the game did make me grumpy, but when the tiny children of the soccer players came out onto the field, it defused my resentment a little. Besides the team which played better did win. I only wish it hadn't been darn Spain again.
***
Since I have no interest in Wimbledon, the Tour de France, or that costlier sport, the inquiry into the rate-fixing scandal, I have moved on to the haute couture week in Paris.
I said scathing things about Givenchy's collection the last time around (or the time before that?). But much to my surprise it did appear to catch on, and long, impractical gowns which are practically translucent except for strategically located stitching showed up on actresses at film premieres and so on. (At which point I will mention that I am glad that Katie Holmes is apparently casting off the fetters of Scientology forever.) This year I liked the collection better.
As for Raf Simons's Dior collection, it was more in the combined aesthetic of the early days and of John Galliano than I'd expected. I still pigeonhole the designer as a minimalist with a predilection for shapelessness and disagreeable colours — though, to be fair, some of the blues and reds in this Dior collection were lovely — probably unfairly. It irritates me a little that commentators on fashion are trying to pretend that Galliano's disagreeable views detract from the quality of his fashion; they do no such thing. You can't put in any designer, say 'He isn't anti-Semitic,' and expect him to come up with something wonderful and original based on that qualification — and maybe it is the very offensiveness with which Galliano could act which made him barrel ahead and produce the flamboyant things which made him a striking and not servilely conformist contributor to fashion weeks. That said, I am obviously not privy to the inner workings or finer points of the fashion world.
I remember Galliano's aesthetic generally, and though I don't think it's one of his most influential collections, I really liked the one he did which was inspired by flowers (and the models had upside-down cones of transparent plastic popped over their heads in homage to florists' wrappers). Having spent a great deal of time in our garden when we had one, it was a very nice experience to see how, in an alien but wonderfully observed way, the shapes and tinges and so on of the flora were being celebrated in cloth. It seemed clear that he and his design team loved flowers as much as I do.
***
Yesterday two classmates and I gave a presentation on black and Islamic feminism in the US. I concentrated on the second topic, and though it is very interesting, I think there is in fact a great deal more scholarship to be done. That said, the number of Muslim women in the US seem to number from 500,000 to 3.5 million (since the US Census is forbidden from asking about religion, the number of Muslims in the country is unknown except as extrapolated from surveys and so on), dispersed fairly widely around the states, so it isn't maybe a very visible group.
A theme I went into is that many of the restrictive practices attached to Islam are, in fact, practiced in specific sects and countries only, and secondly often arise from local cultural traditions rather than the Quran or even the core Sunni or Shi'a philosophies themselves.
Anyway, I had so many points that I had to stop maybe four-fifths of the way through; but I felt that it was good this way and that I didn't leave essential things out. But I mostly covered immigrant Muslim communities, left out the Nation of Islam and the hijab because these were covered in other presentations, and only had a short blurb about the Five Percent. And I still feel like talking on and on about what I found out during my research.
Besides I have been able to try smoked almonds for the first time, thanks to our English aunt (as I like to think of her): the first three almonds are good; the fourth flips a switch where they become nearly irresistible.
***
À propos of nothing, the weather is kind of terrible. It is not uncommonly hot for this time of year — hardly impressive in fact in any way — but this degree of humidity drags one down like a gourmand albatross. Two days in a row one finds one's self covered in a fuzzy layer of moistness if one is cursed by the need to ride in the U-Bahn. (By 'one' I am obviously thinking of 'me.') I catnapped through much of the Latin lesson and admittedly found that it went by with rather enjoyable swiftness.
Over the weekend we had a lightning storm which raised the worry that someone somewhere in Berlin had offended God in a very thorough manner. I had managed to go to sleep by 2 a.m. perhaps when I was woken up by a series of tremendous tearing sounds from overhead which ripped away until they abruptly stopped, then there came great barely perceptible booms which echoed from the very foundations of the soil, and lightning so bright and so encompassing in its brightness that it was like daylight at dawn. There was torrential rain, too. I wasn't the only one who woke up in the family; the neighbours overhead were also thumping presumably to the window and back. It turns out (from the U-Bahn televisions' news on Monday), that there were 8000 lightning strikes and two fires — fortunately no injuries.
***
As for the Euro Cup final, I hadn't thought much of Italy's team from what I'd heard of it. I detested it with a fiery hatred after the World Cup 2006 final because of the Zidane-Materazzi incident and because I had the impression that most of the team were cheats and that the team captain had a Mussoliniesque fascist air. During the World Cup in 2010 I repented because they mounted so much of an effort in their final game. Now Materazzi is nowhere to be seen, I have a good impression of the team generally, and rightly or wrongly I thought their game against Germany (which at first I was convinced they'd justly lose) showed skill and also a fairly clean way of playing.
During the World Cup 2012 I hated, instead, Spain's and the Netherlands' teams. I didn't think much of the players's personalities — though I made an exception for Spain's goalkeeper and the head coach — and the style of playing on both teams was a contrast to the fireworks of talent, inspiration, and 'soul' which were shown even by teams which didn't make it to the finals. I probably made clear which teams I liked at the time — for instance Uruguay and Chile, except for the latter's foul-spree tendencies. But Brazil's team, except if I am overidealizing it, was the most impressive. One did have the idea that it was a remnant of glory past. But first of all the greater heights of the players gave them a kind of dignified movement and loftiness. Secondly the attitude toward the game was so different: not the product of training regimens it seemed so much as of living the sport from a very early age, so that much of the technique was in fact second nature and not calculation, and it felt as if they were in their element and didn't really need a coach telling them what to do. This is where, though I've come to like Spain's team much better, I object to Spain and the Netherlands' team (though it appears to have changed a little) and to a lesser degree to the German team, which plays with conscientious strategy but tends in my view to falter if they are losing instead of rising to the challenge and battling as well they can.
This quality of courage, I think, characterized Italy's playing in this year's final. After Thiago Motta left the field, it did fizzle, but considering what they did since it was clear from the outset that Spain had the upper hand, I thought it was good. The fouls were not too bad, and the diving was less melodrama and more naturalism. As for Spain, I thought that the third goal was one of the most uninteresting ones I've seen in my life, and didn't know why the goalscorer looked so pleased until I read that he has won the Golden Boot.
So the game did make me grumpy, but when the tiny children of the soccer players came out onto the field, it defused my resentment a little. Besides the team which played better did win. I only wish it hadn't been darn Spain again.
***
Since I have no interest in Wimbledon, the Tour de France, or that costlier sport, the inquiry into the rate-fixing scandal, I have moved on to the haute couture week in Paris.
I said scathing things about Givenchy's collection the last time around (or the time before that?). But much to my surprise it did appear to catch on, and long, impractical gowns which are practically translucent except for strategically located stitching showed up on actresses at film premieres and so on. (At which point I will mention that I am glad that Katie Holmes is apparently casting off the fetters of Scientology forever.) This year I liked the collection better.
As for Raf Simons's Dior collection, it was more in the combined aesthetic of the early days and of John Galliano than I'd expected. I still pigeonhole the designer as a minimalist with a predilection for shapelessness and disagreeable colours — though, to be fair, some of the blues and reds in this Dior collection were lovely — probably unfairly. It irritates me a little that commentators on fashion are trying to pretend that Galliano's disagreeable views detract from the quality of his fashion; they do no such thing. You can't put in any designer, say 'He isn't anti-Semitic,' and expect him to come up with something wonderful and original based on that qualification — and maybe it is the very offensiveness with which Galliano could act which made him barrel ahead and produce the flamboyant things which made him a striking and not servilely conformist contributor to fashion weeks. That said, I am obviously not privy to the inner workings or finer points of the fashion world.
I remember Galliano's aesthetic generally, and though I don't think it's one of his most influential collections, I really liked the one he did which was inspired by flowers (and the models had upside-down cones of transparent plastic popped over their heads in homage to florists' wrappers). Having spent a great deal of time in our garden when we had one, it was a very nice experience to see how, in an alien but wonderfully observed way, the shapes and tinges and so on of the flora were being celebrated in cloth. It seemed clear that he and his design team loved flowers as much as I do.
***
Yesterday two classmates and I gave a presentation on black and Islamic feminism in the US. I concentrated on the second topic, and though it is very interesting, I think there is in fact a great deal more scholarship to be done. That said, the number of Muslim women in the US seem to number from 500,000 to 3.5 million (since the US Census is forbidden from asking about religion, the number of Muslims in the country is unknown except as extrapolated from surveys and so on), dispersed fairly widely around the states, so it isn't maybe a very visible group.
A theme I went into is that many of the restrictive practices attached to Islam are, in fact, practiced in specific sects and countries only, and secondly often arise from local cultural traditions rather than the Quran or even the core Sunni or Shi'a philosophies themselves.
Anyway, I had so many points that I had to stop maybe four-fifths of the way through; but I felt that it was good this way and that I didn't leave essential things out. But I mostly covered immigrant Muslim communities, left out the Nation of Islam and the hijab because these were covered in other presentations, and only had a short blurb about the Five Percent. And I still feel like talking on and on about what I found out during my research.
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