Wednesday 11 August 2010
Tuesday 10 August 2010
nelson mandela
Nelson Mandela is sitting at home watching TV and drinking a beer when he hears a knock at the door.
When he opens it, he is confronted by a little Chinese man, clutching a clip board and yelling,
-* "You Sign! You sign!"
Behind him is an enormous truck full of car exhausts.
Nelson is standing there in complete amazement, when the Chinese man starts to yell louder.
-* "You Sign! You sign!"
Nelson says to him,
-* "Look, you´ve obviously got the wrong man", and shuts the door.
The next day he hears a knock at the door again. When he opens it,the little Chinese man is back with a huge truck of brake pads.
He thrusts his clipboard under Nelson´s nose, yelling,
-* "You sign! You sign!"
Mr Mandela is getting a bit hacked off by now, so he pushes the little Chinese man back, shouting:
-* "Look, go away! You´ve got the wrong man! I don´t want them!" Then he slams the door again.
The following day, Nelson is resting, and late in the afternoon, he hears a knock on the door again.
On opening the door, there is the same little Chinese man thrusting a clipboard under his nose, shouting,
-* "You sign! You sign!"
Behind him are TWO very large trucks full of car parts. This time Nelson Mandela loses his temper completely, he picks up the little man by his shirt front and yells at him:
-* "Look, I don´t want these! Do you understand? You must have the wrong name! Who do you want to give these to?"
The little Chinese man looks very puzzled, consults his clipboard, and says:
-* "You not Nissan Main Dealer???"
When he opens it, he is confronted by a little Chinese man, clutching a clip board and yelling,
-* "You Sign! You sign!"
Behind him is an enormous truck full of car exhausts.
Nelson is standing there in complete amazement, when the Chinese man starts to yell louder.
-* "You Sign! You sign!"
Nelson says to him,
-* "Look, you´ve obviously got the wrong man", and shuts the door.
The next day he hears a knock at the door again. When he opens it,the little Chinese man is back with a huge truck of brake pads.
He thrusts his clipboard under Nelson´s nose, yelling,
-* "You sign! You sign!"
Mr Mandela is getting a bit hacked off by now, so he pushes the little Chinese man back, shouting:
-* "Look, go away! You´ve got the wrong man! I don´t want them!" Then he slams the door again.
The following day, Nelson is resting, and late in the afternoon, he hears a knock on the door again.
On opening the door, there is the same little Chinese man thrusting a clipboard under his nose, shouting,
-* "You sign! You sign!"
Behind him are TWO very large trucks full of car parts. This time Nelson Mandela loses his temper completely, he picks up the little man by his shirt front and yells at him:
-* "Look, I don´t want these! Do you understand? You must have the wrong name! Who do you want to give these to?"
The little Chinese man looks very puzzled, consults his clipboard, and says:
-* "You not Nissan Main Dealer???"
Friday 6 August 2010
Quantas engineers
According to the story, after every Quantas Airlines flight the pilots complete a 'gripe sheet' report, which conveys to the ground crew engineers any mechanical problems on the aircraft during the flight. The engineer reads the form, corrects the problem, and then writes details of action taken on the lower section of the form for the pilot to review before the next flight. It is clear from the examples below that ground crew engineers have a keen sense of humor - these are supposedly real extracts from gripe forms completed by pilots with the solution responses by the engineers. Incidentally, Quantas has the best safety record of all the world's major airlines.
(1 = The problem logged by the pilot.) (2 = The solution and action taken by the mechanics.)
1) Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
2) Almost replaced left inside main tire.
1) Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
2) Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
1) Something loose in cockpit.
2) Something tightened in cockpit.
1) Dead bugs on windshield.
2) Live bugs on back-order.
1) Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
2) Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
1) Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
2) Evidence removed.
1) DME volume unbelievably loud.
2) DME volume set to more believable level.
1) Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
2) That's what they're there for.
1) IFF inoperative.
2) IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
1) Suspected crack in windshield.
2) Suspect you're right.
1) Number 3 engine missing.
2) Engine found on right wing after brief search.
1) Aircraft handles funny.
2) Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.
1) Target radar hums.
2) Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
1) Mouse in cockpit.
2) Cat installed.
vainglorious
vainglorious
PRONUNCIATION:
(vayn-GLOR-ee-uhs) 
MEANING:
adjective: Filled with, exhibiting, or proceeding from excessive pride, especially in one's achievements or abilities. ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin vana gloria (empty pride), from vana, feminine of vanus (empty) + gloria (pride, glory). USAGE:
"But some see James Cameron as a vainglorious auteur and seek to puncture his perceived pretension."Nick Watt; Is the 'Avatar' Movie Making Viewers Nauseous?; ABC News (New York); Dec 18, 2009.
Explore "vainglorious" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
Thursday 5 August 2010
jejune
jejune
PRONUNCIATION:
(ji-JOON) MEANING:
adjective:1. Dull; insipid.
2. Lacking maturity; juvenile.
3. Lacking in nutrition.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin jejunus (empty, hungry, fasting, meager). A related word is jejunum, the middle part of the small intestine. It was so called because it was usually found empty after death. USAGE:
"Some songs are inspired and done with a knowing sense of irony. Others are jaw-droppingly jejune."John Doyle; Glee's Back; Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Apr 13, 2010.
Explore "jejune" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success. -Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)
Wednesday 4 August 2010
Paradise Lost
In today's excerpt - the 1922 destruction of Smyrna, a beautiful city located on
the Aegean coast of what is now Turkey with twice the Greek population of Athens
itself. In a century of global ethnic cleansing, the razing of Smyrna was on a scale
that the world had never before seen - and was a harbinger of much that came after.
Perhaps the most cosmopolitan and ethnically tolerant city in the world in the early
twentieth century, it fell victim to the nascent Turkish nationalist movement after
misguided foreign policy moves - some say the blunders of British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George - inflamed the centuries-old enmity between Turkey and Greece.
Essentially all of its 700,000 inhabitants were killed, captured or fled as refugees
before the Turkish National Army:
"The city [of Smyrna] was one in which fig-laden camels nudged their way past the
latest Newton Bennett motor car; in which the strange new vogue of the cinema was
embraced as early as 1908. There were seventeen companies dealing exclusively in
imported Parisian luxuries. And if [a person] cared to read a daily newspaper,
he had quite a choice: eleven Greek, seven Turkish, five Armenian, four French and
five Hebrew, not to mention the ones shipped in from every capital city in Europe.
...
"Amidst the grandeur there was intense human activity. Hawkers and street traders
peddled their wares along the mile-long quayside. Water sellers jangled their brass
bowls; hodjas - Muslim holy men - mumbled prayers in the hope of earning a copper
or two. And impecunious legal clerks. often Italian, would proffer language lessons
at knock-down prices. 'You saw all sorts . . .' recalled the French journalist,
Gaston Deschamps. 'Swiss hoteliers, German traders, Austrian tailors, English mill
owners, Dutch fig merchants, Italian brokers, Hungarian bureaucrats, Armenian agents
and Greek bankers.'
"The waterfront was lined with lively bars, brasseries and shaded cafe gardens,
each of which tempted the palate with a series of enticing scents. The odour of
roasted cinnamon would herald an Armenian patisserie; apple smoke spilled forth
from hookahs in the Turkish cafes. Coffee and olives, crushed mint and armagnac:
each smell was distinctive and revealed the presence of more than three dozen culinary
traditions. Caucasian pastries, boeuf a la mode, Greek game pies and Yorkshire pudding
could all be found in the quayside restaurants of Smyrna. ...
"What happened over the two weeks [following September 9, 1922] must surely rank
as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth century. Innocent civilians
- men, women and children from scores of different nationalities - were caught in
a humanitarian disaster on a scale that the world had never before seen. The entire
population of the city became the victim of a reckless foreign policy that had gone
hopelessly, disastrously wrong. ...
"The total death toll is hard to compute with any certainty. According to Edward
Hale Bierstadt - executive of the United States Emergency Committee - approximately
100,000 people were killed and another 160,000 deported into the interior. 'It is
a picture too large and too fearful to be painted,' he wrote in his 1924 study of
the disaster, The Great Betrayal, although he did his best, interviewing numerous
eyewitnesses and collecting their testimonies. Other estimates were more conservative,
claiming that 190,000 souls were unaccounted for by the end of September. It is
unclear how many of these had been killed and how many deported, although Greek
sources suggest that at least 100,000 Christians were marched into the interior
of the country. Most of these were never seen again. ...
"The exodus from Asia Minor was on a [massive] scale and it was to continue for
many months. To [rescue worker] Esther Lovejoy's eyes, it was 'the greatest migration
in the history of mankind.' The migration was eventually enshrined in law in 1923,
when [Turkish leader] Mustafa Kemal put his signature to the Treaty of Lausanne.
All of Turkey's remaining 1.2 million Orthodox Christians were to be uprooted from
their ancestral homes and moved to Greece. And the 400,000 Muslims living in Greece
were to be removed from their houses and transported to Turkey. It was ethnic cleansing
without parallel."
Author: Giles Milton
Title: Paradise Lost
Publisher: Sceptre
Date: Copyright 2008 by Giles Milton
Pages: 6-8, 372, 382
the Aegean coast of what is now Turkey with twice the Greek population of Athens
itself. In a century of global ethnic cleansing, the razing of Smyrna was on a scale
that the world had never before seen - and was a harbinger of much that came after.
Perhaps the most cosmopolitan and ethnically tolerant city in the world in the early
twentieth century, it fell victim to the nascent Turkish nationalist movement after
misguided foreign policy moves - some say the blunders of British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George - inflamed the centuries-old enmity between Turkey and Greece.
Essentially all of its 700,000 inhabitants were killed, captured or fled as refugees
before the Turkish National Army:
"The city [of Smyrna] was one in which fig-laden camels nudged their way past the
latest Newton Bennett motor car; in which the strange new vogue of the cinema was
embraced as early as 1908. There were seventeen companies dealing exclusively in
imported Parisian luxuries. And if [a person] cared to read a daily newspaper,
he had quite a choice: eleven Greek, seven Turkish, five Armenian, four French and
five Hebrew, not to mention the ones shipped in from every capital city in Europe.
...
"Amidst the grandeur there was intense human activity. Hawkers and street traders
peddled their wares along the mile-long quayside. Water sellers jangled their brass
bowls; hodjas - Muslim holy men - mumbled prayers in the hope of earning a copper
or two. And impecunious legal clerks. often Italian, would proffer language lessons
at knock-down prices. 'You saw all sorts . . .' recalled the French journalist,
Gaston Deschamps. 'Swiss hoteliers, German traders, Austrian tailors, English mill
owners, Dutch fig merchants, Italian brokers, Hungarian bureaucrats, Armenian agents
and Greek bankers.'
"The waterfront was lined with lively bars, brasseries and shaded cafe gardens,
each of which tempted the palate with a series of enticing scents. The odour of
roasted cinnamon would herald an Armenian patisserie; apple smoke spilled forth
from hookahs in the Turkish cafes. Coffee and olives, crushed mint and armagnac:
each smell was distinctive and revealed the presence of more than three dozen culinary
traditions. Caucasian pastries, boeuf a la mode, Greek game pies and Yorkshire pudding
could all be found in the quayside restaurants of Smyrna. ...
"What happened over the two weeks [following September 9, 1922] must surely rank
as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth century. Innocent civilians
- men, women and children from scores of different nationalities - were caught in
a humanitarian disaster on a scale that the world had never before seen. The entire
population of the city became the victim of a reckless foreign policy that had gone
hopelessly, disastrously wrong. ...
"The total death toll is hard to compute with any certainty. According to Edward
Hale Bierstadt - executive of the United States Emergency Committee - approximately
100,000 people were killed and another 160,000 deported into the interior. 'It is
a picture too large and too fearful to be painted,' he wrote in his 1924 study of
the disaster, The Great Betrayal, although he did his best, interviewing numerous
eyewitnesses and collecting their testimonies. Other estimates were more conservative,
claiming that 190,000 souls were unaccounted for by the end of September. It is
unclear how many of these had been killed and how many deported, although Greek
sources suggest that at least 100,000 Christians were marched into the interior
of the country. Most of these were never seen again. ...
"The exodus from Asia Minor was on a [massive] scale and it was to continue for
many months. To [rescue worker] Esther Lovejoy's eyes, it was 'the greatest migration
in the history of mankind.' The migration was eventually enshrined in law in 1923,
when [Turkish leader] Mustafa Kemal put his signature to the Treaty of Lausanne.
All of Turkey's remaining 1.2 million Orthodox Christians were to be uprooted from
their ancestral homes and moved to Greece. And the 400,000 Muslims living in Greece
were to be removed from their houses and transported to Turkey. It was ethnic cleansing
without parallel."
Author: Giles Milton
Title: Paradise Lost
Publisher: Sceptre
Date: Copyright 2008 by Giles Milton
Pages: 6-8, 372, 382
Tuesday 3 August 2010
troglodyte
Mark Twain once said, "When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." While swearing is considered uncouth and vulgar, it has its place and purpose. It helps provide an emotional release and clears the system. Isn't a verbal venting of emotions better than a physical manifestation? You don't have to rely on those worn-out four-letter terms to inflict rude remarks on the offending party. With careful selection of words, it's possible to elevate insults to an art form. Why not use this week's select words for one of those times when nothing less will do?
But remember, everything in moderation.
1. Someone who is brutish, reactionary, or primitive.
2. A cave dweller.
3. An animal that lives underground.
Ben Trovato; It's a Sad Day When Not Even the Army Wants You; The Times (Johannesburg, South Africa); Jan 17, 2010.
Explore "troglodyte" in the Visual Thesaurus.
But remember, everything in moderation.
troglodyte
PRONUNCIATION:
(TROG-luh-dyt) MEANING:
noun:1. Someone who is brutish, reactionary, or primitive.
2. A cave dweller.
3. An animal that lives underground.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin troglodytae (cave dwellers), from Greek troglodytai, from trogle (hole) + dyein (to enter). USAGE:
"The recruitment officer was a mean-looking troglodyte who squatted behind his desk licking his lips and cracking his knuckles."Ben Trovato; It's a Sad Day When Not Even the Army Wants You; The Times (Johannesburg, South Africa); Jan 17, 2010.
Explore "troglodyte" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze. -Diogenes, philosopher (412?-323 BCE)
puerile
puerile
PRONUNCIATION:
(PYOO-uhr-il, -uh-ryl, PYOOR-il, -yl) MEANING:
adjective:1. Immature; silly; childish.
2. Relating to childhood.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin puer (boy). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pau- (few, little), which is also the source of paucity, few, foal, filly, pony, pullet, poultry, pupa, poor, pauper, poco, and Sanskrit putra (son). USAGE:
"An Australian friend recently jolted me with an apparently aesthetic but obviously puerile suggestion, 'Mate, can we amend this burqa ban so that only ugly women are required to wear them while the good-looking ones are mandated to wear bikinis?' He was referring to the boiling controversy in Europe over the body-covering burqa."Chan Akya; Burqa Over the Bastille; Asia Times (Hong Kong); Jul 24, 2010.
Explore "puerile" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose. -Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)
london Police
In today's excerpt - the first modern police force. With the Industrial Revolution
came the beginnings of immense social and economic changes and the large scale movement
of the population to the towns. The parish constable and "watch" systems that had
previously been in place failed completely and the impotence of the law-enforcement
machinery was a serious menace. Conditions became intolerable and led to the formation
of the "New Police." Jack Whicher, who later became a famed detective, was among
the first of these new policemen:
"On 18 September,1837, Jack Whicher became a police constable. The Metropolitan
Police, the first such force in the country, was eight years old. London had got
so big, so fluid, so mysterious to itself that in 1829 its inhabitants had, reluctantly,
accepted the need for a disciplined body of men to patrol the streets. The 3,500
policemen were known as 'bobbles' and 'peelers' (after their founder, Sir Robert
Peel), as 'coppers' (they caught, or copped, villains), as 'crushers' (they crushed
liberty), as 'Jenny Darbies' (from gendarmes), and as pigs (a term of abuse since
the sixteenth century).
"Whicher was issued with dark-blue trousers and a dark-blue long-tailed coat, its
bright metal buttons imprinted with a crown and the word POLICE. ... Whicher shared
a dormitory with about sixteen other men in the Hunter Place station house, in Hunter
Street, just south of King's Cross. All single men were expected to lodge in the
station house, and to be in their quarters by midnight....
"In the daytime, a constable covered a seven-and-a-half-mile beat at two-and-a-half
miles an hour for two four-hour stints: from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., say, and from 2
p.m. to 6 p.m. He familiarised himself with every house on his beat, and strove
to clear the roads of beggars, tramps, costermongers, drunks and prostitutes. He
was subject to spot checks by a sergeant or an inspector, and the rules were strict:
no leaning or sitting while on the beat, no swearing, no consorting with servant
girls. The police were instructed to treat everyone with respect - the drivers
of hansom cabs, for instance, were not to be referred to as 'cabbies' - and to avoid
the use of force. These standards were to be observed off-duty, too. If found drunk
at any time, a constable was issued with a warning, and if the offence was repeated
he was dismissed from the force. In the early 1830s four out of five dismissals,
of a total of three thousand, were for drunkenness. ...
"The circuit was much shorter at night - two miles - and Whicher was expected to
pass each point on his beat every hour. Though this shift could be miserable in
winter, it had its perks: tips for waking up market traders or labourers before
dawn, and sometimes a 'toothful' of beer or brandy from each publican on the route.
...
"[Whicher's district] teemed with tricksters, and the police had to be expert in
identifying them. A new vocabulary evolved to catalogue the various deceits. The
police watched out for 'magsmen' (conmen, such as card sharps) who 'gammoned' (fooled)
'flats' (dupes) with the help of 'buttoners' or 'bonnets'
(accomplices who drew people in by seeming to win money from the magsmen). A 'screever'
(drafter of documents) might sell a 'fakement' to a vagrant 'on the blob' (telling
hard-luck stories) - in 1837, fifty Londoners were arrested for producing such documents
and eighty-six for bearing them. To 'work the kinchin lay),' was to trick children
out of their cash or clothing. To 'work the shallow' was to excite compassion by
begging half-naked. To
'shake lurk' was to beg in the guise of a shipwrecked sailor. In November 1837 a
magistrate noted that some thieves in the Holborn area were acting as decoys, feigning
drunkenness in order to distract police constables while their friends burgled houses."
Author: Kate Summerscale
Title: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Publisher: Walker
Date: Copyright 2008 by Kate Summerscale
Pages: 45-49
came the beginnings of immense social and economic changes and the large scale movement
of the population to the towns. The parish constable and "watch" systems that had
previously been in place failed completely and the impotence of the law-enforcement
machinery was a serious menace. Conditions became intolerable and led to the formation
of the "New Police." Jack Whicher, who later became a famed detective, was among
the first of these new policemen:
"On 18 September,1837, Jack Whicher became a police constable. The Metropolitan
Police, the first such force in the country, was eight years old. London had got
so big, so fluid, so mysterious to itself that in 1829 its inhabitants had, reluctantly,
accepted the need for a disciplined body of men to patrol the streets. The 3,500
policemen were known as 'bobbles' and 'peelers' (after their founder, Sir Robert
Peel), as 'coppers' (they caught, or copped, villains), as 'crushers' (they crushed
liberty), as 'Jenny Darbies' (from gendarmes), and as pigs (a term of abuse since
the sixteenth century).
"Whicher was issued with dark-blue trousers and a dark-blue long-tailed coat, its
bright metal buttons imprinted with a crown and the word POLICE. ... Whicher shared
a dormitory with about sixteen other men in the Hunter Place station house, in Hunter
Street, just south of King's Cross. All single men were expected to lodge in the
station house, and to be in their quarters by midnight....
"In the daytime, a constable covered a seven-and-a-half-mile beat at two-and-a-half
miles an hour for two four-hour stints: from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., say, and from 2
p.m. to 6 p.m. He familiarised himself with every house on his beat, and strove
to clear the roads of beggars, tramps, costermongers, drunks and prostitutes. He
was subject to spot checks by a sergeant or an inspector, and the rules were strict:
no leaning or sitting while on the beat, no swearing, no consorting with servant
girls. The police were instructed to treat everyone with respect - the drivers
of hansom cabs, for instance, were not to be referred to as 'cabbies' - and to avoid
the use of force. These standards were to be observed off-duty, too. If found drunk
at any time, a constable was issued with a warning, and if the offence was repeated
he was dismissed from the force. In the early 1830s four out of five dismissals,
of a total of three thousand, were for drunkenness. ...
"The circuit was much shorter at night - two miles - and Whicher was expected to
pass each point on his beat every hour. Though this shift could be miserable in
winter, it had its perks: tips for waking up market traders or labourers before
dawn, and sometimes a 'toothful' of beer or brandy from each publican on the route.
...
"[Whicher's district] teemed with tricksters, and the police had to be expert in
identifying them. A new vocabulary evolved to catalogue the various deceits. The
police watched out for 'magsmen' (conmen, such as card sharps) who 'gammoned' (fooled)
'flats' (dupes) with the help of 'buttoners' or 'bonnets'
(accomplices who drew people in by seeming to win money from the magsmen). A 'screever'
(drafter of documents) might sell a 'fakement' to a vagrant 'on the blob' (telling
hard-luck stories) - in 1837, fifty Londoners were arrested for producing such documents
and eighty-six for bearing them. To 'work the kinchin lay),' was to trick children
out of their cash or clothing. To 'work the shallow' was to excite compassion by
begging half-naked. To
'shake lurk' was to beg in the guise of a shipwrecked sailor. In November 1837 a
magistrate noted that some thieves in the Holborn area were acting as decoys, feigning
drunkenness in order to distract police constables while their friends burgled houses."
Author: Kate Summerscale
Title: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Publisher: Walker
Date: Copyright 2008 by Kate Summerscale
Pages: 45-49
Friday 30 July 2010
meretricious
meretricious
PRONUNCIATION:
(mer-i-TRISH-uhs) MEANING:
adjective:1. Appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry.
2. Based on pretense or insincerity.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin meretricius, meretrix (prostitute), from merere (to earn money). USAGE:
"For most of the 20th century John Singer Sargent's skills as a portraitist were deemed to be meretricious."Waldemar Januszczak; A Dirty Old Man And the Sea?; The Sunday Times (London, UK); Jul 11, 2010.
Explore "meretricious" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
A Short History of Nearly Everything --- bacteria
In today's excerpt - bacteria:
"It's probably not a good idea to take too personal an interest in your microbes.
Louis Pasteur, the great French chemist and bacteriologist, became so preoccupied
with them that he took to peering critically at every dish placed before him with
a magnifying glass, a habit that presumaby did not win him many repeat invitations
to dinner.
"In fact, there is no point in trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on
and around you always, in numbers you can't conceive. If you are in good health
and averagely diligent about hygiene, you will have a herd about one trillion bacteria
grazing on your fleshy plains - about a hundred thousand of them on every square
centimeter of skin. They are there to dine off the ten billion or so flakes of
skin you shed every day, plus all the tasty oils and fortifying minerals that seep
out from every pore and fissure. You are for them the ultimate food court, with
the convenience of warmth and constant mobility thrown in. By way of thanks, they
give you B.O.
"And those are just the bacteria that inhabit your skin. There are trillions more
tucked away in your gut and nasal passages, clinging to you hair and eyelashes,
swimming over the surface of your eyes, drilling through the enamel of your teeth.
Your digestive system alone is host to more than a hundred trillion microbes, of
at least four hundred types. Some deal with sugars, some with starches, some attack
other bacteria. A surprising number, like the ubiquitous intestinal spirochetes,
have no detectable function at all. They just seem to like to be with you. Every
human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial
cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria's point of view,
of course, we are a rather small part of them.
"Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics
and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria
to the fringes of existence. Don't you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities
or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes.
This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.
"Bacteria, never forget, got along for billions of years without us. We couldn't
survive a day without them. ... And they are amazingly prolific. The more frantic
among them can yield a new generation in less than ten minutes; Clostridium perfringens,
the disagreeable little organism that causes gangrene, can reproduce in nine minutes.
At such a rate, a single bacterium could theoretically produce more offspring in
two days than there are protons in the universe. 'Given an adequate supply of nutrients,
a single bacterial cell can generate 280,000 billion individuals in a single day,'
according to the Belgian biochemist and Nobel laureate Christian de Duve. In the
same period, a
human cell can just about manage a single division."
Author: Bill Bryson
Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Publisher: Broadway
Date: Copyright 2003 by Bill Bryson
Pages: 302-304
"It's probably not a good idea to take too personal an interest in your microbes.
Louis Pasteur, the great French chemist and bacteriologist, became so preoccupied
with them that he took to peering critically at every dish placed before him with
a magnifying glass, a habit that presumaby did not win him many repeat invitations
to dinner.
"In fact, there is no point in trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on
and around you always, in numbers you can't conceive. If you are in good health
and averagely diligent about hygiene, you will have a herd about one trillion bacteria
grazing on your fleshy plains - about a hundred thousand of them on every square
centimeter of skin. They are there to dine off the ten billion or so flakes of
skin you shed every day, plus all the tasty oils and fortifying minerals that seep
out from every pore and fissure. You are for them the ultimate food court, with
the convenience of warmth and constant mobility thrown in. By way of thanks, they
give you B.O.
"And those are just the bacteria that inhabit your skin. There are trillions more
tucked away in your gut and nasal passages, clinging to you hair and eyelashes,
swimming over the surface of your eyes, drilling through the enamel of your teeth.
Your digestive system alone is host to more than a hundred trillion microbes, of
at least four hundred types. Some deal with sugars, some with starches, some attack
other bacteria. A surprising number, like the ubiquitous intestinal spirochetes,
have no detectable function at all. They just seem to like to be with you. Every
human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial
cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria's point of view,
of course, we are a rather small part of them.
"Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics
and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria
to the fringes of existence. Don't you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities
or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes.
This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.
"Bacteria, never forget, got along for billions of years without us. We couldn't
survive a day without them. ... And they are amazingly prolific. The more frantic
among them can yield a new generation in less than ten minutes; Clostridium perfringens,
the disagreeable little organism that causes gangrene, can reproduce in nine minutes.
At such a rate, a single bacterium could theoretically produce more offspring in
two days than there are protons in the universe. 'Given an adequate supply of nutrients,
a single bacterial cell can generate 280,000 billion individuals in a single day,'
according to the Belgian biochemist and Nobel laureate Christian de Duve. In the
same period, a
human cell can just about manage a single division."
Author: Bill Bryson
Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Publisher: Broadway
Date: Copyright 2003 by Bill Bryson
Pages: 302-304
Thursday 29 July 2010
buffalo
In today's excerpt - the tragedy that ensured the doom of the North American Plains
Indian was the unprecedented slaughter of the American buffalo since they had become
almost completely dependent on the buffalo for identity, sustenance and supplies:
"The greatest threat of all to the [North American Plains Indian] identity, and
to the very idea of a nomadic hunter in North America, appeared on the plains in
the late 1860s. These were the buffalo men. Between 1868 and 1881 they would kill
thirty-one million buffalo, stripping the plains almost entirely of the huge, lumbering
creatures and destroying any last small hope that any horse tribe could ever be
restored to its traditional life. There was no such thing as a horse Indian without
a buffalo herd. Such an Indian had no identity at all.
"The first large-scale slaughter of buffalo by white men with high-powered
rifles took place in the years 1871 and 1872. There had been a limited market for
buffalo products before that. Even as far back as 1825, several hundred thousand
Indian-tanned robes had made it to markets in New Orleans. There had been demand
for buffalo meat to feed the railway workers building the transcontinental railroad
in the 1860s, spawning the fame and legend of hunters like Buffalo Bill Cody. But
there was no real market for buffalo hides until 1870, when a new tanning technology
allowed them to be turned
into high-grade leather. That, combined with a new railhead in Dodge City, Kansas,
meant that the skins could be shipped commercially.
"For hunters, the economics of the new business was miraculous, all the more so
since the animals were so stupefyingly easy to kill. If a buffalo saw the animal
next to it drop dead it would not flee unless it could see the source of the danger.
Thus one shooter with a long-range rifle could drop an entire stand of the creatures
without moving. A hunter named Tom Nixon once shot 120 animals in 40 minutes. In
1873 he killed 3,200 in 35 days, making Cody's once outlandish-sounding claim of
killing 4,280 in 18 months seem paltry by
comparison. Behind the hunters stood the stinking, sweating skinners, covered head
to toe in blood and grease and the animals' parasites. Legendary hunter Brick Bond,
who killed 250 animals a day, employed 15 such men. Covered wagons waited at [the
trading post of] Adobe Walls to take the stacked skins to Dodge City. Except for
the tongues, which were salted and shipped as a delicacy, the carcasses were left
to rot on the plains. The profits, like the mass killing itself, were obscene. In
the winter of 1871-72 a single hide fetched $3.50.
"Within two years these hunters, working mainly the Kansas plains close
to Dodge City, had killed five million buffalo. Almost immediately, they were victims
of their own success. By the spring of 1874 the herds on the middle plains had been
decimated. The economics of hunting became a good deal less miraculous. As one scout
traveling from Dodge City to the Indian territory put it: 'In 1872 we were never
out of sight of the buffalo. In the following autumn, while traveling over the
same district, the whole country was whitened with bleached and bleaching bones.'
Thus the hunters were forced to move farther from the railheads in search of prey.
...
"Surprisingly, only a few voices cried out against the slaughter of the buffalo,
which had no precedent in human history. Mostly people didn't trouble
themselves about the consequences. It was simply capitalism working itself out,
the exploitation of another natural resource. There was another, better
explanation for the lack of protest, articulated best by General Phil Sheridan,
then commander of the Military Division of the Missouri. 'These men [hunters] have
done in the last two years ... more to settle the vexed Indian question than the
entire regular army has done in the last thirty years,' he said. 'They are destroying
the Indians' commissary ... For the sake of a lasting peace, let them kill, skin
and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered
with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy.' Killing the Indians' food was not
just an accident of commerce; it was a deliberate political act."
Author: S.C. Gwynne
Title: Empire of the Summer Moon
Publisher: Scribner
Date: Copyright 2010 by S.C. Gwynne
Pages: 259-262
Indian was the unprecedented slaughter of the American buffalo since they had become
almost completely dependent on the buffalo for identity, sustenance and supplies:
"The greatest threat of all to the [North American Plains Indian] identity, and
to the very idea of a nomadic hunter in North America, appeared on the plains in
the late 1860s. These were the buffalo men. Between 1868 and 1881 they would kill
thirty-one million buffalo, stripping the plains almost entirely of the huge, lumbering
creatures and destroying any last small hope that any horse tribe could ever be
restored to its traditional life. There was no such thing as a horse Indian without
a buffalo herd. Such an Indian had no identity at all.
"The first large-scale slaughter of buffalo by white men with high-powered
rifles took place in the years 1871 and 1872. There had been a limited market for
buffalo products before that. Even as far back as 1825, several hundred thousand
Indian-tanned robes had made it to markets in New Orleans. There had been demand
for buffalo meat to feed the railway workers building the transcontinental railroad
in the 1860s, spawning the fame and legend of hunters like Buffalo Bill Cody. But
there was no real market for buffalo hides until 1870, when a new tanning technology
allowed them to be turned
into high-grade leather. That, combined with a new railhead in Dodge City, Kansas,
meant that the skins could be shipped commercially.
"For hunters, the economics of the new business was miraculous, all the more so
since the animals were so stupefyingly easy to kill. If a buffalo saw the animal
next to it drop dead it would not flee unless it could see the source of the danger.
Thus one shooter with a long-range rifle could drop an entire stand of the creatures
without moving. A hunter named Tom Nixon once shot 120 animals in 40 minutes. In
1873 he killed 3,200 in 35 days, making Cody's once outlandish-sounding claim of
killing 4,280 in 18 months seem paltry by
comparison. Behind the hunters stood the stinking, sweating skinners, covered head
to toe in blood and grease and the animals' parasites. Legendary hunter Brick Bond,
who killed 250 animals a day, employed 15 such men. Covered wagons waited at [the
trading post of] Adobe Walls to take the stacked skins to Dodge City. Except for
the tongues, which were salted and shipped as a delicacy, the carcasses were left
to rot on the plains. The profits, like the mass killing itself, were obscene. In
the winter of 1871-72 a single hide fetched $3.50.
"Within two years these hunters, working mainly the Kansas plains close
to Dodge City, had killed five million buffalo. Almost immediately, they were victims
of their own success. By the spring of 1874 the herds on the middle plains had been
decimated. The economics of hunting became a good deal less miraculous. As one scout
traveling from Dodge City to the Indian territory put it: 'In 1872 we were never
out of sight of the buffalo. In the following autumn, while traveling over the
same district, the whole country was whitened with bleached and bleaching bones.'
Thus the hunters were forced to move farther from the railheads in search of prey.
...
"Surprisingly, only a few voices cried out against the slaughter of the buffalo,
which had no precedent in human history. Mostly people didn't trouble
themselves about the consequences. It was simply capitalism working itself out,
the exploitation of another natural resource. There was another, better
explanation for the lack of protest, articulated best by General Phil Sheridan,
then commander of the Military Division of the Missouri. 'These men [hunters] have
done in the last two years ... more to settle the vexed Indian question than the
entire regular army has done in the last thirty years,' he said. 'They are destroying
the Indians' commissary ... For the sake of a lasting peace, let them kill, skin
and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered
with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy.' Killing the Indians' food was not
just an accident of commerce; it was a deliberate political act."
Author: S.C. Gwynne
Title: Empire of the Summer Moon
Publisher: Scribner
Date: Copyright 2010 by S.C. Gwynne
Pages: 259-262
fulsome
fulsome
PRONUNCIATION:
(FUL-suhm) MEANING:
adjective:1. Effusive; lavish.
2. Excessive to the point of being offensive.
ETYMOLOGY:
A combination of the words full and -some (having a particular quality). NOTES:
Does the word fulsome have a positive connotation or negative? Depends on whom you ask. The word started out in mid 13th century as a straightforward, unambiguous word to describe abundance. By the 17th century, it had acquired a deprecatory sense, as in the second sense listed above. Then, again, it went around the bend and in the 20th century the positive sense of the word become more common. Language purists continue to stick with the second sense, while others use the word in its first sense. What to do? Avoid it, unless context is clear, as in the two usage examples below. USAGE:
"Dacres offered Hull fulsome compliments on the courage and performance of his men."Ian W. Toll; Blood Brothers; The Economist (London, UK); Nov 4, 2006.
"One tires of the fulsome endorsement, the blizzard of exclamation points, the arch locutions."
Daniel Aaron; Belle du Jour; The New Republic (Washington, DC); Feb 2, 1998.
Explore "fulsome" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I hate with a murderous hatred those men who, having lived their youth, would send into war other youth, not lived, unfulfilled, to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die. -Mary Roberts Rinehart, novelist (1876-1958)
Oil on the Brain
In today's excerpt - the curse of abundant oil resources in developing countries
- in this example, Venezuela. Developing countries with oil grow only one-fourth
as fast as those without, and are far more likely to be militarized and devolve
into civil war. In fact, oil and mineral-exporting countries have a 23 percent likelihood
of
civil war within five years, compared to less than 1 percent for
nondependent countries.:
"[With its oil wealth], Venezuela began to import more and more and produce less,
a typical symptom of Dutch disease, where resource-rich countries see other parts
of their economics wither. (Venezuela actually had Dutch disease before the Dutch,
but that term wouldn't be invented until the natural gas boom in the Netherlands
in the 1960s torpedoed the country's economy. The condition should be called the
Caracas cramp.)
"[After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in 1921], nobody paid taxes. If you're
an oil state, it's far more efficient to ask oil buyers for more money than to
collect taxes from your population, which requires a vast network of tax collectors,
a bureaucracy, laws that are fair, and a justice system to administer them. Collecting
oil money, by contrast, requires a small cadre of intellectuals to set policy and
diplomats to make it happen. ... The political, economic, and psychological ramifications
of this ... are profound.
" 'Systematically the government went after oil money rather than raising taxes,'
says economist Francisco Monaldi. 'There is no taxation and therefore no representation
here. The state here is extremely autonomous.' Whether it's a dictatorship, a democracy,
or something in between, the state's only patron is the oil industry, and all of
its attention is focused outward. What's more, the state owes nothing more than
promises to the people of Venezuela, because they have so little leverage on the
state's income.
"When a state develops the ability to collect taxes, the bureaucracy and mechanisms
it creates are expensive. They perpetuate their existence by diligently collecting
as much money as possible and encouraging the growth of a private economy to collect
taxes from. A strong private economy, so the thinking goes, creates a strong civil
society, fostering other centers of power that keep the state in check. Like other
intellectuals I talk with in other oil states, Monaldi finds taxes more interesting
and more useful than abstract ideas about democracy and ballot boxes. Taxes aren't
democracy, but they seem to connect taxpayers and government in a way that has democratizing
effects. Studies by Michael L. Ross at UCLA found that taxes alone don't foster
accountability, but the relationship of taxes to government services creates a struggle
for value between the state and citizens, which is some kind of accountability.
...
"Abdoulaye Djonouma, president of Chad's Chamber of Commerce, says oil brought about
economic and agricultural collapse in Nigeria and Gabon. For Chad, which has fewer
resources, he fears worse: militarization. He ticks off all the former French colonies
that have become militarized. Virtually all. (One study found that oil-exporting
countries spend between two and ten times more on their militaries than other developing
countries.) ...
"At Stanford, Terry Lynn Karl's analysis of Venezuela's economy during the 1970s
and '80s shows that countries whose economy is dominated by oil exports tend to
experience shrinking standards of living - something that Chad can hardly afford.
Oil has opportunity costs: A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andres Warner showed that
of ninety-seven developing countries, those without oil grew four times as much
as those with oil. At UCLA, Michael L. Ross did regression studies showing that
governments that export oil tend to become less democratic over time. At Oxford,
Paul Collier's regression studies show that oil, and
"At Stanford, Terry Lynn Karl's analysis of Venezuela's economy during the 1970s
and '80s shows that countries whose economy is dominated by oil exports tend to
experience shrinking standards of living - something that Chad can hardly afford.
Oil has opportunity costs: A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andres Warner showed that
of ninety-seven developing countries, those without oil grew four times as much
as those with oil. At UCLA, Michael L. Ross did regression studies showing that
governments that export oil tend to become less democratic over time. At Oxford,
Paul Collier's regression studies show that oil, and mineral-exporting countries
have a 23 percent likelihood of civil war within five years, compared to less than
1 percent for nondependent countries."
Author: Lisa Margonelli
Title: Oil on the Brain
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Date: Copyright 2007 by Lisa Margonelli
Pages: 146-147, 174-176
- in this example, Venezuela. Developing countries with oil grow only one-fourth
as fast as those without, and are far more likely to be militarized and devolve
into civil war. In fact, oil and mineral-exporting countries have a 23 percent likelihood
of
civil war within five years, compared to less than 1 percent for
nondependent countries.:
"[With its oil wealth], Venezuela began to import more and more and produce less,
a typical symptom of Dutch disease, where resource-rich countries see other parts
of their economics wither. (Venezuela actually had Dutch disease before the Dutch,
but that term wouldn't be invented until the natural gas boom in the Netherlands
in the 1960s torpedoed the country's economy. The condition should be called the
Caracas cramp.)
"[After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in 1921], nobody paid taxes. If you're
an oil state, it's far more efficient to ask oil buyers for more money than to
collect taxes from your population, which requires a vast network of tax collectors,
a bureaucracy, laws that are fair, and a justice system to administer them. Collecting
oil money, by contrast, requires a small cadre of intellectuals to set policy and
diplomats to make it happen. ... The political, economic, and psychological ramifications
of this ... are profound.
" 'Systematically the government went after oil money rather than raising taxes,'
says economist Francisco Monaldi. 'There is no taxation and therefore no representation
here. The state here is extremely autonomous.' Whether it's a dictatorship, a democracy,
or something in between, the state's only patron is the oil industry, and all of
its attention is focused outward. What's more, the state owes nothing more than
promises to the people of Venezuela, because they have so little leverage on the
state's income.
"When a state develops the ability to collect taxes, the bureaucracy and mechanisms
it creates are expensive. They perpetuate their existence by diligently collecting
as much money as possible and encouraging the growth of a private economy to collect
taxes from. A strong private economy, so the thinking goes, creates a strong civil
society, fostering other centers of power that keep the state in check. Like other
intellectuals I talk with in other oil states, Monaldi finds taxes more interesting
and more useful than abstract ideas about democracy and ballot boxes. Taxes aren't
democracy, but they seem to connect taxpayers and government in a way that has democratizing
effects. Studies by Michael L. Ross at UCLA found that taxes alone don't foster
accountability, but the relationship of taxes to government services creates a struggle
for value between the state and citizens, which is some kind of accountability.
...
"Abdoulaye Djonouma, president of Chad's Chamber of Commerce, says oil brought about
economic and agricultural collapse in Nigeria and Gabon. For Chad, which has fewer
resources, he fears worse: militarization. He ticks off all the former French colonies
that have become militarized. Virtually all. (One study found that oil-exporting
countries spend between two and ten times more on their militaries than other developing
countries.) ...
"At Stanford, Terry Lynn Karl's analysis of Venezuela's economy during the 1970s
and '80s shows that countries whose economy is dominated by oil exports tend to
experience shrinking standards of living - something that Chad can hardly afford.
Oil has opportunity costs: A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andres Warner showed that
of ninety-seven developing countries, those without oil grew four times as much
as those with oil. At UCLA, Michael L. Ross did regression studies showing that
governments that export oil tend to become less democratic over time. At Oxford,
Paul Collier's regression studies show that oil, and
"At Stanford, Terry Lynn Karl's analysis of Venezuela's economy during the 1970s
and '80s shows that countries whose economy is dominated by oil exports tend to
experience shrinking standards of living - something that Chad can hardly afford.
Oil has opportunity costs: A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andres Warner showed that
of ninety-seven developing countries, those without oil grew four times as much
as those with oil. At UCLA, Michael L. Ross did regression studies showing that
governments that export oil tend to become less democratic over time. At Oxford,
Paul Collier's regression studies show that oil, and mineral-exporting countries
have a 23 percent likelihood of civil war within five years, compared to less than
1 percent for nondependent countries."
Author: Lisa Margonelli
Title: Oil on the Brain
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Date: Copyright 2007 by Lisa Margonelli
Pages: 146-147, 174-176
Wednesday 28 July 2010
there seems to be a word for everything
psychopomp
PRONUNCIATION:
(SY-ko-pomp) MEANING:
noun: A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife. ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche (breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide). USAGE:
"Harold Bloom here presents himself as a mystagogue and a soothsayer, a psychopomp of our times, conducting souls into unknown territories."Marina Warner; Where Angels Tread; The Washington Post; Sep 15, 1996.
Explore "psychopomp" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Words that aren't what they appear to be
Illustrating the importance of using the right word, Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning-bug & the lightning."
Choosing the right word is critical, but with a million words in the language, it's hard to get to know them all. Sometimes we have to hazard a guess, and try to figure out a word by its looks and sounds. It doesn't always work and results can be similar to placing the publication Style (instead of InStyle) in the waiting area of a hair salon.
This week we feature five words who meanings are different from what one might first guess.
1. An inventor.
2. A craftsperson.
3. A mechanic in the armed forces.
Tom Lubbock; Flights of Fantasy; The Independent (London, UK); Sep 18, 2006.
Explore "artificer" in the Visual Thesaurus.
Choosing the right word is critical, but with a million words in the language, it's hard to get to know them all. Sometimes we have to hazard a guess, and try to figure out a word by its looks and sounds. It doesn't always work and results can be similar to placing the publication Style (instead of InStyle) in the waiting area of a hair salon.
This week we feature five words who meanings are different from what one might first guess.
artificer
PRONUNCIATION:
(ahr-TIF-uh-suhr) MEANING:
noun:1. An inventor.
2. A craftsperson.
3. A mechanic in the armed forces.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin artificium (craftsmanship, art), from art + facere (to make). USAGE:
"The artificer turns a little sadly to his king: 'One day, I hope mankind will find a peaceful use for my invention,' he says."Tom Lubbock; Flights of Fantasy; The Independent (London, UK); Sep 18, 2006.
Explore "artificer" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Words that look like one part of speech but are another
noisome
PRONUNCIATION:
(NOI-suhm) MEANING:
adjective:1. Offensive, especially to the sense of smell.
2. Harmful; noxious.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Middle English noy (short of annoy), via French, from Latin inodiare (to make hateful), from in- (intensive prefix) + odium (hate). USAGE:
"Phasing out of noisome exhausts on motorbikes should be handled seriously and urgently."ESG Response; Gibraltar Chronicle; Nov 28, 2009.
"The anti-social behaviour order, or Asbo, has helped to bring some relief to hard-pressed communities plagued by noisome neighbours and menacing yobs."
Making Justice Swifter; The Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Oct 8, 2009.
Explore "noisome" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another. -Juvenal, poet (c. 60-140)
phonograph-records
In today's excerpt - when commercial radio first appeared in 1920, the sales of
phonograph-records began to collapse. The unlikely savior of the phonograph-record
companies was a little-known genre of music from the South that came to be called
country music:
"The first shot in the media revolution occurred on November 2, 1920, when the first
commercially licensed radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, made its debut broadcast
by announcing the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election. Within months,
new commercial stations were popping up around the country like dandelions after
a spring rain. Some were a little bizarre - an early
Washington, D.C., station was licensed to a priest and boasted the call letters
WJSV, 'Will Jesus Save Virginia.' Others went to big commercial enterprises, like
Chicago's WLS, owned by Sears and standing for 'World's Largest Store.' Still others
were licensed to insurance companies, like Nashville's WSM - standing for 'We Shield
Millions,' the slogan of the owners, the National Life and Accident Insurance Company.
By 1922 and 1923, most major cities could boast of a radio station, and in the uncluttered
airwaves of the time, people routinely picked up signals from hundreds of miles
away.
"One effect of the popularity of the new radios had was to knock the bottom out
of phonograph-record sales. The flat 78 rpm records had been around since the turn
of the century, but record companies saw them as playthings for well-to-do families
of the time; they featured a lot of light opera, pieces by Sousa's Band, vocal solos
by Caruso, and barbershop harmonies by the Peerless Quartet. Now, suddenly, people
found they could hear music free on the radio; why buy records for seventy-five
cents apiece? Desperate to maintain sales, the record companies began casting about
for new markets. They stumbled upon one in 1920, when the Okeh label released a
song called 'Crazy Blues' by a vaudeville singer named Mamie Smith. It was the first
blues record by an African-American artist, and it became a bestseller by appealing
to a hitherto untapped record market - black Americans.
"In June 1923, the same man who had recorded Mamie Smith - Ralph Peer, a thirty-
one-year-old, moon-faced A&R (artists & repertoire) chief who had been born in
Kansas City, Missouri, but now worked out of New York - found himself in Atlanta
looking for talent. A local dealer promised to buy five hundred copies if Peer
would record the town character - Fiddlin' John Carson - a fifty-five-year-old former
millworker who had won fame at the Municipal Auditorium's annual fiddling contest.
Peer agreed and in a temporary studio recorded Carson playing the fiddle unaccompanied
and singing 'The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane.' 'I thought his singing was pluperfect
awful,' Peer admitted years later. But he released the record - and was surprised
to see it become a modest hit.
"Within months, the race was on as the major record companies scrambled to tap into
this new market of working-class southerners. At first they didn't even know what
to call the music: Some ads mentioned 'oldtime southern tunes,' others 'hill country
music,' others 'oldtime music.' Victor called its series 'Native American Melodies.'
In 1924, a Texan singer working in New York, Vernon
Dalhart, actually had a nationwide hit with a train-wreck ballad called 'The Wreck
of the Old '97.' He followed this up in 1925 with a topical 'broadside' ballad called
'The Death of Floyd Collins,' about the miner who attracted widespread attention
when he was trapped in a Kentucky sand cave; this record sold more than three hundred
thousand copies, and if any of the record companies had lingering doubts about the
marketability of southern music, these reservations were put to rest.
"Following Ralph Peer's lead, the companies began sending talent scouts into the
South to hunt up and record on-location fiddlers, singers, banjo players, and gospel
quartets. In the summer of 1927, Peer hit pay dirt once again. In an old hat factory
doubling as a temporary studio, in the Virginia-Tennessee border town of Bristol,
he discovered the two acts that were to dominate country music's first decade: a
singing trio called the Carter Family and a former railroad brakeman named Jimmie
Rodgers."
Author: Edited by Robert Santelli, Holly George-Warren, and Jim Brown
Title: American Roots Music
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Date: Copyright 2001 by Ginger Group Productions Inc. and Rolling Stone Press
Page: 20
phonograph-records began to collapse. The unlikely savior of the phonograph-record
companies was a little-known genre of music from the South that came to be called
country music:
"The first shot in the media revolution occurred on November 2, 1920, when the first
commercially licensed radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, made its debut broadcast
by announcing the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election. Within months,
new commercial stations were popping up around the country like dandelions after
a spring rain. Some were a little bizarre - an early
Washington, D.C., station was licensed to a priest and boasted the call letters
WJSV, 'Will Jesus Save Virginia.' Others went to big commercial enterprises, like
Chicago's WLS, owned by Sears and standing for 'World's Largest Store.' Still others
were licensed to insurance companies, like Nashville's WSM - standing for 'We Shield
Millions,' the slogan of the owners, the National Life and Accident Insurance Company.
By 1922 and 1923, most major cities could boast of a radio station, and in the uncluttered
airwaves of the time, people routinely picked up signals from hundreds of miles
away.
"One effect of the popularity of the new radios had was to knock the bottom out
of phonograph-record sales. The flat 78 rpm records had been around since the turn
of the century, but record companies saw them as playthings for well-to-do families
of the time; they featured a lot of light opera, pieces by Sousa's Band, vocal solos
by Caruso, and barbershop harmonies by the Peerless Quartet. Now, suddenly, people
found they could hear music free on the radio; why buy records for seventy-five
cents apiece? Desperate to maintain sales, the record companies began casting about
for new markets. They stumbled upon one in 1920, when the Okeh label released a
song called 'Crazy Blues' by a vaudeville singer named Mamie Smith. It was the first
blues record by an African-American artist, and it became a bestseller by appealing
to a hitherto untapped record market - black Americans.
"In June 1923, the same man who had recorded Mamie Smith - Ralph Peer, a thirty-
one-year-old, moon-faced A&R (artists & repertoire) chief who had been born in
Kansas City, Missouri, but now worked out of New York - found himself in Atlanta
looking for talent. A local dealer promised to buy five hundred copies if Peer
would record the town character - Fiddlin' John Carson - a fifty-five-year-old former
millworker who had won fame at the Municipal Auditorium's annual fiddling contest.
Peer agreed and in a temporary studio recorded Carson playing the fiddle unaccompanied
and singing 'The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane.' 'I thought his singing was pluperfect
awful,' Peer admitted years later. But he released the record - and was surprised
to see it become a modest hit.
"Within months, the race was on as the major record companies scrambled to tap into
this new market of working-class southerners. At first they didn't even know what
to call the music: Some ads mentioned 'oldtime southern tunes,' others 'hill country
music,' others 'oldtime music.' Victor called its series 'Native American Melodies.'
In 1924, a Texan singer working in New York, Vernon
Dalhart, actually had a nationwide hit with a train-wreck ballad called 'The Wreck
of the Old '97.' He followed this up in 1925 with a topical 'broadside' ballad called
'The Death of Floyd Collins,' about the miner who attracted widespread attention
when he was trapped in a Kentucky sand cave; this record sold more than three hundred
thousand copies, and if any of the record companies had lingering doubts about the
marketability of southern music, these reservations were put to rest.
"Following Ralph Peer's lead, the companies began sending talent scouts into the
South to hunt up and record on-location fiddlers, singers, banjo players, and gospel
quartets. In the summer of 1927, Peer hit pay dirt once again. In an old hat factory
doubling as a temporary studio, in the Virginia-Tennessee border town of Bristol,
he discovered the two acts that were to dominate country music's first decade: a
singing trio called the Carter Family and a former railroad brakeman named Jimmie
Rodgers."
Author: Edited by Robert Santelli, Holly George-Warren, and Jim Brown
Title: American Roots Music
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Date: Copyright 2001 by Ginger Group Productions Inc. and Rolling Stone Press
Page: 20
Thursday 15 July 2010
china -we need to learn from them
"In 2004 China shook automakers worldwide with the incredible speed and strictness
of the auto fuel efficiency standards it enacted, which are 5 to 10 percent stricter
than U.S. standards and among the toughest in the world.
"The task of writing the rules fell to the Ministry of Standards. ... Yin Minhan,
director of the Department of Industry and Transportation, ... is the epitome of
bright efficiency: Since 2000 he's worked on energy standards for a fast-forward
social history of Chinese consumerism: first electric motors, then refrigerators,
air conditioners, and now cars.
"Yin's group met with consultants from China as well as the Energy Foundation, a
U.S.-funded NGO, and then traveled to Japan, the United States, and Europe to gather
opinions on efficiency regimes. They decided to create a scheme that rewarded smaller
cars and imposed stricter fuel efficiency standards on larger ones. The standards
go into effect in two stages. In the first stage, only one U.S.-made SUV passes.
The second stage is harder still. 'We learned our lessons from the U.S.,' says
Wang Junwei, one of the five hundred or so people involved in auto standards at
the ministry. 'We are going to clamp down on SUVs early!'
"But there was a bigger strategy behind the rules than merely saving fuel and preventing
pollution. The ultimate intent of the regulations was to make Chinese-built cars
more exportable to high-end markets, such as Europe. Designed to pressure joint
ventures like GM and Volkswagen to send their newest technology to China, the standards
are part of the slow revolution that could make China the new Detroit.
"When the Chinese bureaucrats in charge of the standards listened to Detroit auto
executives denigrate fuel economy standards, they heard an opportunity. The team
perceived Detroit's reluctance as a strategic weakness and a clear way for China's
industry to become more competitive. 'China doesn't subscribe to the idea that what's
good for GM is good for the country,' an American consultant who worked with the
government team says with a laugh. ...
"[Outside of Shanghai] sits six square miles named Shanghai International Auto City,
recently carved from the rice fields of a town called Jiading. Three years ago Shanghai
decided it wanted to build a place for its auto industry to become the largest in
the world. Out went Jiading's farmers and little factories. In went Tongji University's
College of Automotive Studies, spaces for joint-venture auto assembly plants, parts
suppliers, testing facilities, a car museum, a wind tunnel, a golf course, and a
$320 million state-of-the-art Formula One track - in the shape of the first character
of Shanghai's name, which means, roughly, 'upward.' "
Author: Lisa Margonelli
Title: Oil on the Brain
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Copyright 2007 by Lisa Margonelli
Pages: 269-270, 272.
of the auto fuel efficiency standards it enacted, which are 5 to 10 percent stricter
than U.S. standards and among the toughest in the world.
"The task of writing the rules fell to the Ministry of Standards. ... Yin Minhan,
director of the Department of Industry and Transportation, ... is the epitome of
bright efficiency: Since 2000 he's worked on energy standards for a fast-forward
social history of Chinese consumerism: first electric motors, then refrigerators,
air conditioners, and now cars.
"Yin's group met with consultants from China as well as the Energy Foundation, a
U.S.-funded NGO, and then traveled to Japan, the United States, and Europe to gather
opinions on efficiency regimes. They decided to create a scheme that rewarded smaller
cars and imposed stricter fuel efficiency standards on larger ones. The standards
go into effect in two stages. In the first stage, only one U.S.-made SUV passes.
The second stage is harder still. 'We learned our lessons from the U.S.,' says
Wang Junwei, one of the five hundred or so people involved in auto standards at
the ministry. 'We are going to clamp down on SUVs early!'
"But there was a bigger strategy behind the rules than merely saving fuel and preventing
pollution. The ultimate intent of the regulations was to make Chinese-built cars
more exportable to high-end markets, such as Europe. Designed to pressure joint
ventures like GM and Volkswagen to send their newest technology to China, the standards
are part of the slow revolution that could make China the new Detroit.
"When the Chinese bureaucrats in charge of the standards listened to Detroit auto
executives denigrate fuel economy standards, they heard an opportunity. The team
perceived Detroit's reluctance as a strategic weakness and a clear way for China's
industry to become more competitive. 'China doesn't subscribe to the idea that what's
good for GM is good for the country,' an American consultant who worked with the
government team says with a laugh. ...
"[Outside of Shanghai] sits six square miles named Shanghai International Auto City,
recently carved from the rice fields of a town called Jiading. Three years ago Shanghai
decided it wanted to build a place for its auto industry to become the largest in
the world. Out went Jiading's farmers and little factories. In went Tongji University's
College of Automotive Studies, spaces for joint-venture auto assembly plants, parts
suppliers, testing facilities, a car museum, a wind tunnel, a golf course, and a
$320 million state-of-the-art Formula One track - in the shape of the first character
of Shanghai's name, which means, roughly, 'upward.' "
Author: Lisa Margonelli
Title: Oil on the Brain
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Copyright 2007 by Lisa Margonelli
Pages: 269-270, 272.
Sunday 11 July 2010
Lungi
Just as the national bird of Kerala is the Mosquito, her national dress is 'The Lungi'. Pronounced as 'Lu' as in loo and 'ngi ' as in 'mongey', a lungi can be identified by its floral or window-curtain pattern. 'Mundu' is the white variation of lungi and is worn on special occasions like hartal or bandh days, weddings and Onam.
Lungi is simple and 'down to earth' like the malayali wearing it. Lungi is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing something on the top half of your body is optional when you are wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It's like a one-size-fits-all bottoms for Keralites.
The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than sudarshan kriya of AOL. A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won't come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It's a bit of mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca Cola chemicals.
A lungi can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major disadvantage is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing a lungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy legs.
Wearing a lungi 'Half Mast' is when you wear it exposing yourself like those C grade movie starlets. A malayali can play cricket, football or simbly run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A malayali can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi in half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a malayali climbing a coconut tree"- Confucius (or is it Abdul Kalam?)
Most malayalis do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking alcohol and yattam, spelled as aattam, means random movement of the male body. Note that 'y' is silent. When you are drinking, you drink, there is no 'y'. Any alcohol related "festival" can be enjoyed to the maximum when you are topless with lungi and a towel tied around the head. "Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs" says Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching 'kudiyaattam' .
The 'Lungi Wearing Malayali Union' [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO which works towards the 'upliftment' of the lungi, strongly disapprove of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermudas under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy by the CIA. It's a disgrace to see a person wearing burmuda with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don't know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression.
A mallu wears lungi round the year, all weather, all season. A mallu celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern.
Lungi is simple and 'down to earth' like the malayali wearing it. Lungi is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing something on the top half of your body is optional when you are wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It's like a one-size-fits-all bottoms for Keralites.
The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than sudarshan kriya of AOL. A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won't come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It's a bit of mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca Cola chemicals.
A lungi can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major disadvantage is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing a lungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy legs.
Wearing a lungi 'Half Mast' is when you wear it exposing yourself like those C grade movie starlets. A malayali can play cricket, football or simbly run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A malayali can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi in half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a malayali climbing a coconut tree"- Confucius (or is it Abdul Kalam?)
Most malayalis do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking alcohol and yattam, spelled as aattam, means random movement of the male body. Note that 'y' is silent. When you are drinking, you drink, there is no 'y'. Any alcohol related "festival" can be enjoyed to the maximum when you are topless with lungi and a towel tied around the head. "Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs" says Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching 'kudiyaattam' .
The 'Lungi Wearing Malayali Union' [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO which works towards the 'upliftment' of the lungi, strongly disapprove of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermudas under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy by the CIA. It's a disgrace to see a person wearing burmuda with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don't know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression.
A mallu wears lungi round the year, all weather, all season. A mallu celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern.
Lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between legs. A mallu is scared of global warming more than anyone else in the world.
A lungi/mundu can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as blanket at night. It also doubles up as a swing, swimwear, sleeping bag, parachute, facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops, shopping basket and water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers. It also has recreational uses like in 'Lungi/mundu pulling', a pastime in households having more than one male member. Lungi pulling competitions are held outside toddyshops all over Kerala during Onam and Vishu. When these lungis are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths. Thus the humble lungi is a cradle to grave appendage.
A lungi/mundu can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as blanket at night. It also doubles up as a swing, swimwear, sleeping bag, parachute, facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops, shopping basket and water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers. It also has recreational uses like in 'Lungi/mundu pulling', a pastime in households having more than one male member. Lungi pulling competitions are held outside toddyshops all over Kerala during Onam and Vishu. When these lungis are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths. Thus the humble lungi is a cradle to grave appendage.
Saturday 10 July 2010
quotes 10.7.10
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
-- Philip Guedalla
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
-- Elizabeth Taylor
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
-- Marquis de la Grange
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
-- William Shakespeare
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.
-- Charles Kuralt
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
-- Laurence J. Peter
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
-- John Cage
I didn't really say everything I said.
-- Yogi Berra
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
-- Thomas A. Edison
The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
-- John Ciardi
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
-- Robert Frost
If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
-- Mark Twain
We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.
-- George Bernard Shaw, "You Never Can Tell" (1898), act I
People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
-- Peter Ustinov
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
-- Paul Valery
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
-- Christopher Morley
The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.
-- Dave Kellett, Sheldon, 02-01-09
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
-- William G. McAdoo
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
-- Albert Camus
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
-- Noel Coward
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
-- Katharine Hepburn
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
-- Philip Guedalla
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
-- Elizabeth Taylor
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
-- Marquis de la Grange
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
-- William Shakespeare
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.
-- Charles Kuralt
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
-- Laurence J. Peter
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
-- John Cage
I didn't really say everything I said.
-- Yogi Berra
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
-- Thomas A. Edison
The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
-- John Ciardi
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
-- Robert Frost
If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
-- Mark Twain
We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.
-- George Bernard Shaw, "You Never Can Tell" (1898), act I
People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
-- Peter Ustinov
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
-- Paul Valery
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
-- Christopher Morley
The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.
-- Dave Kellett, Sheldon, 02-01-09
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
-- William G. McAdoo
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
-- Albert Camus
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
-- Noel Coward
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
-- Katharine Hepburn
Friday 9 July 2010
the taxi driver
The Cab Ride
I arrived at the address and honked the horn.
After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door and knocked.
'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice.
I could hear something being dragged across the floor..
After a long pause, the door opened.
After a long pause, the door opened.
A small woman in her 90's stood before me..
She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it,
Like somebody out of a 1940's movie.
By her side was a small nylon suitcase.
By her side was a small nylon suitcase.
The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years.
All the furniture was covered with sheets.
There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters.
There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters.
In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said.
'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said.
I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.
She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb..
She kept thanking me for my kindness.
She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb..
She kept thanking me for my kindness.
'It's nothing', I told her..
'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated'.
'Oh, you're such a good boy', she said.
'Oh, you're such a good boy', she said.
When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked,
'Could you drive through downtown?'
'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..
'Oh, I don't mind,' she said.
'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..
'Oh, I don't mind,' she said.
'I'm in no hurry.
I'm on my way to a hospice'.
I looked in the rear-view mirror.
I looked in the rear-view mirror.
Her eyes were glistening.
'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice..
'The doctor says I don't have very long.
'I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.
'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city.
'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city.
She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived
When they were newlyweds.
We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived
When they were newlyweds.
She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once
Been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner
Been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner
And would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing..
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said,
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said,
'I'm tired. Let's go now'.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me.
It was a low building, like a small convalescent home,
With a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up..
With a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up..
They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door.
They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door.
The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
'How much do I owe you?'
She asked, reaching into her purse.
'Nothing,' I said
'You have to make a living,' she answered.
'There are other passengers,' I responded.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.
'How much do I owe you?'
She asked, reaching into her purse.
'Nothing,' I said
'You have to make a living,' she answered.
'There are other passengers,' I responded.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.
She held onto me tightly.
'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said.
'Thank you.'
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.
'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said.
'Thank you.'
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.
Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.
I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift.
I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift.
I drove aimlessly lost in thought.
For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.
What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,
Or one who was impatient to end his shift?
What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once,
What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once,
then driven away?
On a quick review,
On a quick review,
I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware - beautifully
wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY
WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~THEY WILL
ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM
FEEL.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.
We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware - beautifully
wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY
WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~THEY WILL
ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM
FEEL.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.
Sunday 4 July 2010
a cow boy named Bud
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Wyoming when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust..
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany ..
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep....
Now give me back my dog.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany ..
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep....
Now give me back my dog.
Wednesday 30 June 2010
buddha
It is sad that people have been confused for so long. They do not understand that their own minds are Buddha and that their own natures are Dharma. They look for Dharma by searching for sages for a way. They look for Buddha but do not observe their own minds.
If they aspire to Buddhahood while clinging to their opinion that Buddha is outside the mind and that Dharma is outside their own nature, then even if they burn their limbs and break their bones for a million kalpas to show their sincerity, even if they sit constantly and never lie down to sleep, write out sutras in their own blood, eat only one meal a day, and practice every austerity—it would be like trying to cook rice by boiling sand, and in the end they will only wear themselves out.
All the Buddhas of the past were simply ordinary people who understood their minds. Likewise, all the masters of the present have simply cultivated their own minds. And all future practitioners will have to depend upon cultivation of mind. So if you wish to follow the Way, do not seek for it outside yourselfThe Only Thing is Within Us, But We Do Not See It.--Chinul (1158-1210)
quote
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
-- Clarence Darrow
-- Clarence Darrow
Friday 18 June 2010
Quotes
The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
-- C. P. Snow
The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.
-- Willie Tyler
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
-- Howard Aiken
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
-- Saint Augustine
One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.
-- Larry Gelbart
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
-- Ogden Nash
An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.
-- Robert A. Humphrey
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
-- Fred Allen
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-- Abraham Lincoln
People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.
-- Bob Hope
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
-- Eric Hoffer
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"
Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
-- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Prehistoric Ice Man, 1999Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
-- David Russell
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
-- Robert Copeland
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
-- William Shakespeare
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.
-- Charles Kuralt
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
-- Laurence J. Peter
-- C. P. Snow
The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.
-- Willie Tyler
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
-- Howard Aiken
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
-- Saint Augustine
One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.
-- Larry Gelbart
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
-- Ogden Nash
An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.
-- Robert A. Humphrey
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
-- Fred Allen
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-- Abraham Lincoln
People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.
-- Bob Hope
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
-- Eric Hoffer
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"
Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
-- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Prehistoric Ice Man, 1999Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
-- David Russell
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
-- Robert Copeland
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
-- William Shakespeare
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.
-- Charles Kuralt
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
-- Laurence J. Peter
El nino
El Niño or El Nino
PRONUNCIATION:
(el NEEN-yo) MEANING:
noun: A weather phenomenon characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. ETYMOLOGY:
From Spanish El Niño, literally "The Boy Child", referring to Baby Jesus as El Niño phenomenon is noticed near Christmas. NOTES:
El Niño, which occurs every three to seven years, is marked by warm sea surface temperature along the coast of Ecuador and Peru in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Its effects on weather are observed around the globe. A counter part is La Niña "The Girl Child" in which unusually cold ocean temperatures are observed in the Equatorial Pacific. USAGE:
"The Phoenix area had its second coolest May in just over a decade, National Weather Service Meteorologist Craig Ellis said. The cooler temperatures were likely due to El Nino."Brittany Williams; Phoenix Area May See 110 by Sunday; The Arizona Republic; Jun 1, 2010.
pluvial
pluvial
PRONUNCIATION:
(PLOO-vee-uhl) MEANING:
adjective: Of or relating to rain, especially much rain. ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin pluvia (rain), from pluere (to rain). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pleu- (to flow), that is also the source of flow, float, flit, fly, flutter, pulmonary, and pneumonia. USAGE:
"The inclement weather was expected to continue throughout the week, and meteorologists predict that the next few days will remain pluvial."Inclement Weather Sweeps Israel; The Jerusalem Post (Israel); Jan 18, 2010.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction. -Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)
nimbus
nimbus
PRONUNCIATION:
(NIM-buhs) plural: nimbi or nimbuses MEANING:
noun:1. A rain cloud.
2. A halo or aura around the head of a person depicted in a piece of art.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin nimbus (cloud). Ultimately from the Indo-European root nebh- (cloud) that is also the source of nebula, nephometer (a device used in measuring the amount of cloud cover), and Sanskrit nabh (sky). USAGE:
"The works take their cue from the perspective view one might see out an airplane window but become a curious exercise in painterly flatness, the white nimbuses butting up along the faint horizon."Eric Banks; Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction; The Washington Post; Feb 20, 2010.
"He saw that at once; he took that also as the meed due his oil wells and his Yale nimbus, since three years at New Haven, leading no classes and winning no football games, had done nothing to dispossess him of the belief that he was the natural prey of all mothers of daughters."
William Faulkner; Collected Stories of William Faulkner; Vintage Books; 1995.
Explore "nimbus" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. -Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)
Tuesday 15 June 2010
a word a day
virga
PRONUNCIATION:
(VUHR-guh) MEANING:
noun: Rain or snow that evaporates before hitting the ground. ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin virga (rod, streak). USAGE:
"Macduff Everton's images are so physical and tactile, you can nearly feel the moisture in the virga."Len Jenshel; 25 All-Time Best Photo Books; National Geographic Traveler (Washington, DC); Jan/Feb 2005.
Explore "virga" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
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