"Be Ye Steadfast": Part One

the quote comes from the New Testament of the Bible: 1 Corinthians 15 and was a personal motto of Frances Perkins. If you don't know who Perkins was, she was the first female cabinet member in US history, under FDR, and the person after whom my scholarship and experience at Mt Holyoke College (she was an alumna) is named.

At a time when men will still reeling from women voting, and in the heat of the Great Depression, Ms. Perkins dedicated herself to the fruition of her life-long work of improving conditions for workers. Having seen with her own eyes, the carnage of The Triangle Factory Fire, where 146 mostly young women either died when they jumped from the eight stories up, or burned to death inside. Read more here.

The incident propelled the already aware Frances to action, and a life that would be spent insuring an end to child-labor, advanced legislation for the 40 hour work week, (vs typical work week of a minimum of 60 hours). Her most important influence was as architect for Social Security. Facing opposition from an inflamed congress that was losing free-reign to do what they would to benefit their own purses, Ms Perkins faced accusations of  impeachment ... all while trying to coordinate care of her mentally ill (think schizoid here...not depression) husband.  The famous picture of her standing behind FDR while he signs the Social Security Act, shows Ms Perkins staring into the crowd; she was in actuality looking to see if her husband had found her, since he had recently left his sanitarium looking for her.

Here is information for Ms Perkins, taken from the recent exhibition at the Columbia Univeristy Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and includes some of the strangest collection of fear mongering propaganda. Sadly, nothing has changed.

The next blog entry will exhibit stupidity masked as the Governor of Maine, and his thoughts on our Ms. Perkins. I laughed, and then got ticked off. not to worry: Lynn P had it covered.

even more NOOOOOO!!!!!

New words

New initialisms in the OED

OMG and LOL, FYI

For the March 2011 release of OED Online, we have selected for publication a number of noteworthy initialisms—abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of a name or expression. Some of these—such as OMG  [OMG int. (and n.) and adj.]: ‘Oh my God’ (or sometimes ‘gosh’, ‘goodness’, etc.) and LOL  [LOL int. and n./2]: ‘laughing out loud’—are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications (email, texting, social networks, blogs, and so on). They join other entries of this sort: IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’) [IMHO at I n./1], TMI (‘too much information’)  [TMI at T n.], and BFF (‘best friends forever’) [BFF at B n.], among others.

Of course in such a context initialisms are quicker to type than the full forms, and (in the case of text messages, or Twitter, for example) they help to say more in media where there is a limit to a number of characters one may use in a single message. OMG and LOL are found outside of electronic contexts, however; in print, and even in spoken use (see, for example, the 2003 quotation for LOL int.), where there often seems to be a bit more than simple abbreviation going on. The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.

As such usage indicates, many people would consider these recent coinages, from the last 10 or 20 years, and associate them with a younger generation conversant with all forms of digital communications. As is often the case, OED’s research has revealed some unexpected historical  perspectives: our first quotation for OMG is from a personal letter from 1917; the letters LOL had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (or ‘little old lady’; see LOL n./1); and the entry for FYI  [FYI phr., adj., and n.], for example, shows it originated in the language of memoranda in 1941. (http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/blog/oxfordwords-blog)

 BAH!!!

I am turning into a curmudgeon:  

curmudgeon /  k:'md()n/

→ n. 
a bad-tempered or surly person.
- DERIVATIVES curmudgeonliness n.  curmudgeonly adj. 
- ORIGIN C16: of unknown origin.  (OED Source)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't handle the break-up with the OED... must I endure this, if we are to stay together????: 

♥ to heart
The new sense added to heart v. in this update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers. It originated as a humorous reference to logos featuring a picture of a heart as a symbol for the verb love, like that of the famous ‘I ♥ NY’ tourism campaign. Our earliest quote for this use, from 1984, uses the verb in ‘I heart my dog’s head’, a jokey play on bumper stickers featuring a heart and a picture of the face of a particular breed of dog (expressing a person’s enthusiasm for, say, shih-tzus) which itself became a popular bumper sticker.  From these beginnings, heart v. has gone on to live an existence in more traditional genres of literature as a colloquial synonym for ‘to love’.
(http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update#)

 A symbol to replace a word?!?!?! NO. No. No. and just because it is a faux-verb, is no reason to put it in. I can't even imagine what the lobby for the next symbol is. I hope all you semiotics types are happy now :P  
 

best insults...EVER

There are many insults in the Shakespeare canon, but none make me smile like those from Richard III. 


Of my favorites is: Dost grant me, hedgehog? (I, ii, 280)  Just think of it.  this could replace "I know you are, but what am I?" in colloquial speech, if we just start using it.


But what of the hedgehog??? Why is that such an insult?  Specifically, when Lady Anne is hurling some of the finest insults in early modern English, she is hurling them at that "..diffused infection of a man" (I, ii, 253): Richard.  Ricard's coat of arms contains a red wild Boar...which is a pig...which is hog. So reducing him from a charging boar to a porcupine (porc, taking from the Latin, porcine: pig) is degrading. More than that, it is freaking hysterical, especially if one considers what a lame hedgehog looks like: 

not to mention: 

From Monty Python's Flying Circus

One heck of a catchy tune

"Daft Punk is Playing at My House"  

...you got to set them up..

Catchy "chorus" gets stuck in my head (*), in my head@ 01:12.

(*) Stuck in my head, thanks to JQ a/k/a "Thing 2"  

Misplaced: One Brain

Last seen spewing diatribe against DH Lawrence.  Brain may have become lost when watching videos about Earth's magnetic field. 

If found, approach slowly, then contact owner: liquidiamonds9@gmail.com  

Bringing Skeksi Back!

I found it! <<<<click the link so you can find it too!

Common Sense

The blood of founding father, Thomas Paine, has made it into my child's blood.  I don't like talking politics on my blog, but this article from October 2010 gives one much to consider - like why the GOP is being hijacked by the social conservatives who want to stop time at 1955?

Do I stay home, or go?

It's never too early to start wondering if I should go to the 2012 release of The Hobbit, directed by that grossly misdirected, self-absorbed buffoon who ruined the cinematic debut of the Trilogy....ahh, my anger gets the best of me.

Try to understand me, people.  Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit, and The Silmarillon (the order in which I read them the first time - yes I've read them multiple times...when I say multiple, I mean more than four...except for the Hobbit which I only read twice) are mainstays of my reading experience.  I haven't re-read them since I became a "formal" student of literature. Somehow, the fascination surrounding books, and the memories I have attached to being engrossed in them would seem tainted if I read them right now.  It is that notion of being tainted that brings me to wondering whether I should pay $10 to go see that portly Kiwi ruin ANOTHER experience for me...anger again.

oh, yeah...I have this edition...in its original box holder AND with the fold out maps. Jealous.

Allow me to explain:  there are some texts, works, literature (pick the nomenclature that suits you best) that need no modification.  These works, as written, are fine as they are, and don't need Hollywood's hand to make them palatable for general audiences. Here are some examples: Wuthering Heights, or anything by Dickens. Still, movie producers in an effort to extract as much cash as possible from movie goers over emphasize love scenes, trauma scenes - or worse: create scenes that appear no where in the text....like in the Fellowship of the Ring movie where that cracked-out Kiwi allowed a completely fabricated scene to be inserted.  Arwen was NOT at the Ford of Rivendell. NOT THERE.  Number of lines she had in that book???? NONE!!!!! What?!?! you are claiming that the producers were trying to show the strength and courage of Arwen and the Elves?!?! IT'S CALLED DIALOGUE, MORONS!!!! LEARN TO USE IT INSTEAD OF THE SWEEPING AERIAL SHOTS THAT SERVED AS A POST CARD FROM NEW ZEALAND!!!  oh boy...really whipped up. 

I should try this when I'm more rational.  See what mid-semester break does to a person???

Sol Invictus

The video itself is pretty amazing, and the music isn't half bad either. What starts as a simple note progression, gives way to some serious chord formations, ala Bach and Beethoven (Cream Horn...don't lie, you like the chords),  the gets a beat at 00:50.  At ~ 5:00 the strings become chaotic, which is a nice touch, since the magnetic field of our sun is chaotic. 

Have a look at our Sun taken in extreme UV light (no, it's not blue shifting.) here.  Amazing flares and arcs. See more at my second favorite government website, here.  Humbling...simply, humbling

Technically, the title of the video, Sol Invictus is only partially true: while our Sun is invincible at this point in it's life as a main sequence star, it will most likely become a blue dwarf...but well after we humans have finally made ourselves extinct.

Everybody on the bandwagon!

The media is enjoying the protracted pontificating, positing, and posturing about my man, Charlie "Winning"Sheen. Celebrity failure vultures, that's what the media is. 

I happen to admire the man's brevity: 

"Can't handle it? Losers. Winning."  

Seriously, what more needs to be said that wasn't said there?  He made his point in affirming himself by comparative. Just because he made declarative, single-word statements, doesn't make him nuts... just grammatically questionable.

"I don’t think people are ready for the message I’m delivering." 

Perhaps most people can't understand it, though I can't imagine why.  Paring down thoughts to single words apparently isn't clear enough.

Losers. Winning.

Mind the List, and avoid the wrath

New list for 3/6/11: 

Consciousness

Synergy

Leadership  

Post-Colonial

Photos are up

In case you care, there is a link on the side bar called "Pictures from the Republic".  You can see my pics there, instead of having to log into that dreadful FB.


Having trouble finding it on the side bar? Click here: 

free at last!

Hi Diane,

You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

 

Cognitive Dissonance

Brother James Brown and......Luciano Pavarotti: listen here.  (ps: 5 second delay before the Godfather comes on stage)