incipit vita nova

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

One online site where I was doing work asked for a book recommendation.  I wrote the title of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter, and it automatically changed the title to Our Magnificent @#!%#$^! Tongue.

Professor McWhorter is using the word "bastard" in its original sense.  As someone who recently gained access to the OED online, I can share that this is correct - an illegitimate child is the original, first usage of the word "bastard."  To wit: 1297 R. GLOUC. 295 Of Fulke blode Wyllam bastard com. Fulke, of course, seems to be the 13th century guy of like mind to Tiger Woods!

That's not a "dot com," that's a "com" as in "come" (or today, past tense - "Of Fulke's blood William his bastard came").  It's middle-like English.

A linguist, formerly with UC Berkeley, and now with the Manhattan Institute (Dr. Manhattan's friend, I have to figure), Dr. McWhorter suggests a few elements of English syntax and grammar that he sees at odds with story-of-the-language traditionalists.  I am not exhaustively read in linguistics, so his approach of viewing language at the syntax and grammar level and conducting experiments by omission might be standard operating procedure for linguists.

Briefly, one of Dr. McWhorter's main arguments is that English owes a lot to the Celtic languages, particularly Welsh and Cornish (a language that died prior to the start of the 20th century, but which is now revived again).  He gives as an example the "useless 'do'" which is present in Welsh and Cornish - and current English.  As in "Do you see what they are doing?", and "Do you know how to speak Cornish?" and "I did do what you told me to do."

Cornish, as in a formerly-deceased, now-revived language.  McWhorter also discusses the use of participial verbs for the present and future perfect tenses - this is not common, either.  He has a very thought-provoking example of encouraging the reader to picture coming upon someone working at a computer screen and asking, "What are you doing?" and the person replying, "I am writING."  I am in the act of writing - and I have enough German, French and Spanish to instantly understand what he is getting at, and even remember my awful old Latin.  No, nobody else does say it that way.  It's expressing a state of action that most other languages are content to express with a simple present tense statement of action. 

People do not have enough grasp of English grammar, in many cases, to understand what McWhorter is getting at.  (One Amazon review uses a participle and calls it a gerund to describe the syntax I just described).  I don't have the linguistics background to know whether or not the book is a brief discussion of strongly-held, yet highly debatable points of view.  I do know that "do" isn't REALLY useless, and that the use of the -ing verb construction does have a meaning and does express a subtlety of time, continuation, and action that's different from saying "I write," or "Escrito," in Spanish.  McWhorter is easygoing about various grammar bugaboos, such as the use of the genderfree they as the singular indefinite pronoun.  I teach otherwise; however, my reason is not to destroy student freedom, it is to get them to pay attention to the words and what they write.  Thinking about the "meaningless" (vaguely meaningful 'do') and all - very interesting.  This book is highly recommended.

Ai, Chihuahua

As soon as Taz locates another home or moves to the happy home in the sky, I don't think I'm going to re-experience the difficult task of Chihuahua rehabilitation.

Just one visit to an animal shelter in Southern California will show the out-of-control problem that is the unwanted Chihuahua.  After the Taco Bell dog and Paris Hilton's chihuahua, everybody wanted one.  Movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) didn't help.  

A lot of people use this little guy or girl as an avatar or profile picture.  Very cute!  But chihuahuas aren't for everyone.

More than even other small breeds, they often suffer from serious health problems.  Because they are bred to be so tiny, Chihuahuas are born with a soft fontanel on their skull, like a human baby, that they never completely lose.  When extreme, this condition can even turn to hydrocephalus, or water on the brain.  Seizures, breathing problems, extreme sensitivity to the cold and many hip and knee problems are also very common.

Chihuahuas are also very stubborn and the "human" or babylike manner in the way many are treated by their owners just exacerbates this problem.  Treating the animal like a human baby just makes them an even bigger challenge to train and acclimate to the home under the best of circumstances.  Look at this popular You Tube video - the owners and commenters find the dog's behavior cute.  At 2-3 pounds, which is what these tiny teacup Chihuahuas weigh, the dog can growl and bite all it wants and it won't do damage except to a baby or toddler, and probably not even then.

But anyone who has trained dogs or knows anything about them knows that a growling dog is a biting dog.  A growl is the dog's aggression warning.  Dog growls aren't cute or funny - the dog will eventually lash out. A dog that bites a child may no longer be kept in the home, so owners that encourage their Chihuahuas to act like the crabby little stinkers they prefer to be, untrained and supervised, are just looking for heartbreak down the road.

So in this case, they are actually training "stinky" to snap and bite.  The dog isn't happy, it's miserable and it's trying to protect its little "nest" or territory.

Those who take on these little dogs and provide them a healthy, loving home are truly taking on a big task for such a small pet. If you visit the Chihuahua Rescue right now, there is another "Taz" on the top of the page who was given up because he bit a child.

Chihuahuas are very social and loving, although they obviously experience strong feelings and can be very jealous of toys, favorite "nests" and their bonded humans.  The older they get, the less likely it is they will bond with other, younger pets.  

As with all animal rescue situations, it is human foolishness that causes this problem to continue to grow.  According to the Chihuahua rescue, more than a million Chihuahuas and other small dogs will be euthanized in the U.S. this year, among more than 6 million total unwanted pets whose lives will end in shelters or abandoned on the streets, in open fields, alleys or parking lots.  If you are considering a pet this holiday season, please do not buy your pet from a pet store.  While reputable pet shops do exist, they are rare.  Most pet stores buy their puppies from puppy mills.  The two Chihuahuas I've known (my best friend Cathy previously rehabilitated another little Chihuahua) were both puppy mill puppies.  Each experienced severe problems because of their backgrounds and went from bad to worse before they were rescued.  Please be very wary and careful in obtaining a puppy from a breeder.  Again, while reputable, high quality breeders exist for all breeds of dogs, it should go without saying that if the breeder is selling the animal over the internet and shipping him or her, it will be a puppy mill, with horrible conditions that you probably can't even imagine.

Instead, consider visiting your local Animal Rescue organization.  In most areas, reputable organizations conduct adoption fairs every weekend at local stores like PetSmart and PetCo.  They also often go to community fairs and events.  Breed-specific animal rescues also exist, for every breed imaginable.  However, I will caution that the volunteer-oriented nature of these organizations should be obvious.  Some rescues are not operated very well - in fact, sometimes they can be associated with "hoarding."  However, reasonable contact should let you know whether or not you are dealing with above-board animal lovers, or other types of people.  Be prepared to pay for the animal to be spayed or neutered before you take them home.  Although there are some people who cling to the mistaken belief that animals should be allowed to breed unchecked, don't be one of them.  All of those millions of animals that will be euthanized this year are in that situation because of this dumb human attitude, and also because of unscrupulous, misguided, or just plain bad people who view pets as commodities, seeing them as ways to exploit the animals and make quick cash by selling puppies.  When that doesn't work out?  Sometimes the best the pets can hope for is to be dumped on the doorstep of the local shelter.  

Please research the breed you are interested in and make sure that it will fit with your home and family environment.  If you are seldom home, dogs like Chihuahuas or Jack Russell Terriers aren't the best choice as they are sociable and need regular attention.  In fact, cats may be better pets for apartment-dwellers or those who may be gone for more than 8 hours at a time.

  

Ryan Bingham: My Hero

The 7th man to achieve the coveted American Airlines ultra-platinum 10-million mile flyer award, Ryan Bingham is my hero.  Yes, these programs for frequent flyers are real - here's a lower-level chart showing what lowly 1- and 2-million mile flyers can get.

But, alas, Ryan Bingham isn't a real person.  He's the hero of Up in the Air, the new film by Ivan Reitman starring George Clooney that was released today.

Up in the Air is getting great reviews from critics and regular viewers, including Dorothy on Ch. 11 (Dorothy is almost always right).  I liked it a lot, and though not really a comedy, it has plenty of legitimately funny and wry moments.  It instantly reminded me of Thank You For Smoking (2005), which turns out to be director Reitman's first film, with his second being Juno.

So Ivan Reitman is officially a great director, and we know we can always trust George Clooney.  For 80% of the movie, Vera Farmiga is one of the most likeable film ladies I've seen in a long time. I promise to still like her in future movies . . . I think.  I was also surprised to see Jason Bateman doing amazingly well at his Les Grossman imitation as Ryan's horrific boss (he informs him early in the film that he's just taken his first dump in two weeks, which serves to curtail their long-distance chitchat).

A lot of people will find Up in the Air hard to watch considering that Ryan Bingham's job is to fly all over America and fire people.  As the movie started, I hated him already -- over the course of the film, I came to love him.  A lot of people also might consider that the movie has a "down" ending.  I consider it a victory of sorts.  It's really a great piece of filmmaking.  Now, I want to read the book by Walter Kirn, although the reader reviews make it seem as though this insight into a part of who we are as Americans doesn't sit well with many people.

As to Up in the Air, the film?  It gets four trips to the Admiral's Club and four plastic in-flight bottles of JD straight up.  Would you like a cancer?

Tell them Les sent you.

Could I have done it without you?  A nutless monkey could have done your job!   

Write Anything: Ruth Shalit Barrett

Gender selection has been all over the airwaves, thanks to lots of articles in media about various procedures used to pre-select the gender of babies.  I listened to Bill Handel's semi-crummy solo show on the way to work from school, regarding this topic.  Bill knows a lot about it due to his side fertility and surrogate parenting business.  Then, I drove home all the way down Crenshaw and listened to John & Ken, who were covering the controversial topic of mothers who suffered extreme disappointment because they wanted a girl and got a boy, or vice-versa.

John & Ken featured Stephanie Lewis, whom they heartily trashed in John & Ken style, reading at length from an article by Ruth Shalit Barrett in Elle magazine.  Stephanie came on the air and said she'd been completely misquoted and misrepresented in the article.  Unlike many people who are interviewed and portrayed unflatteringly, and who later complain, Stephanie had numerous points of serious complaint.  First, the twin boys that were featured in the article making it sound as though they were babies are now 17 and getting ready for college, second, Stephanie now has 6 children, third, she and her husband later adopted a baby girl (which was misrepresented in the article as breaking up their marriage - a marriage that broke up later for unrelated reasons) and the various extreme methods for selecting gender that the article said that Stephanie used were not used - in particular, Stephanie said she'd never drunk "kefir," saying she didn't know what it was, and also that she'd never slept with a lime-soaked tampon, and never heard of such a thing.  It turned out that Stephanie had written a self-published novel (XLibris) that featured a mother with extreme gender disappointment that was inspired by her own life - and apparently the book's extreme plot ended up in the article presented as Stephanie's real life.

Stephanie shared the common ploy used by this type of writer - Ruth Shalit Barrett called her up and told her she was writing a sensitive article on the topic of parents who hoped for one gender of baby and got another, and had problems related to it.  She also told her that she'd read her self-published book and was going to write a positive review of it.

Uh.

Apparently due to the article's extreme portrayal, Stephanie says she's being trashed all over the internet, and I heard her receiving the John & Ken tongue-lashing before she went on the air and presented her side of the story.  Stephanie then said people should Google the author's name.  Ha ha!

Ruth is apparently nasty enough that this is her wedding announcement.  Her husband's father was with NY Magazine, and look!  Ruth also writes for them.  The article is down on Elle Magazine, but comments are still around. It's almost horrifying the degree to which others picked up on this article before Elle removed it.

The issue and circumstance is real in its basic essence - some people do want to select the gender of their baby so badly they'll go to an extreme extent.  There is a rare exception here in the U.S. that genetic testing may also be used to pre-select baby gender legally (it is disallowed in most other countries).  Some mothers experience normal post-baby hormonal fluctuations that cause "baby blues" and this can be made worse by expecting one gender, and getting another.  Baby girls are currently more popular and desired than baby boys in the U.S. - a very unusual and new phenomenon.

But bitchy prevaricating pieces of slag that humiliate the rest of us by their existence and set all of us back decades like Ruth Shalit Barrett?  They've been around forever.  I wonder what she's going to feel like when she stops being a "diminutive mantrap"?  Gosh.  I could not feel more sorry for her children.  You can read the reposted article here - at least for the time being.

  

Author Solutions . . . Send Your Dollar Now

I just finished watching the PR Video made by Author Solutions' President Kevin Weiss.  This current conglomerate, made up of bits and pieces of previous bottom-feeding organizations such as my former erstwhile employers iUniverse, is the brainchild behind approaching legitimate publishers such as Harlequin and Thomas Nelson with a deal they thought was too good to turn down - some sort of kickback for referring authors with rejected manuscripts on to a "special" side deal with Author Solutions.

The "Solution" for these authors?  Paying handsomely for the privilege of "publishing" their books, which Harlequin made vague noises might, if surviving the logjam of unpublishable slushy manuscripts now slapped between covers, someday, somehow become "real" Harlequin books.  This is why all legitimate writers' associations have now censured or outright said that Harlequin no longer qualifies as a professional publisher for the purposes of membership in the organizations.  Victoria Strauss correctly points up that Thomas Nelson hasn't gotten as much flak as they should have gotten, as a Christian publisher with an already-going concern offering high-end, pricey services to Christian writers and manuscripts that have failed the "traditional" publishing route - i.e., rejected by Thomas Nelson legit publishing, and sent on to their new, theoretically lucrative "pay to play" option.

Would it be an awesome new Quentin Tarantino film - Inglourious Basterds II, with an "all-star" cast of fresh new faces who'd paid for the privilege of being in the film?  Heck, why not push Brad Pitt aside, and find somebody with some real money who'll finance the picture for the privilege of starring in it?  That old acting system, where some people never get to be the stars . . . oldfashioned and outmoded.  Smart auteurs like Quentin will soon recognize the business potential here, and the person who can pay the most for the privilege clearly will be the best for the role.  And heck, when Academy nomination time comes around, the same rules should come into play.  The person who can most afford a starring role in the best director's film, can also pay for the best reviews, the best ads, and can offer the most lucrative awards to the Academy members to nominate, and later vote for them.  Clearly, the stars of "The Hills" should be ahead in this regard; "Speidi" already thinks it is the most famous, talented duo on the planet.

Most professional writers do earn barely at or above a poverty wage and I'm no exception to that.  However, it will be a cold day in inglorious hell before I bow to greasy, greedy, unscrupulous individuals such as this Weiss, preying eagerly on the dreams and hopes of well-meaning, innocent people.

What Are Kids Afraid Of?

The fears of kids today seem similar to the fears that I had growing up, but I have to say that my daughter Meredith had slightly different fears.  She wasn't afraid of any TV show or movie so far as I could tell.  Instead, she talked about fears related to problems at school or at home -- in other words, realistic.  However, she was afraid of the dark, just like nearly every kid at one time or another.

Today, one of my favorite movies is the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder.  I think, however, that it legitimately scared me when I was a kid.  What did I find the most frightening?  Ending up like "blooberry" (Violet Beauregard), or sent off as a "bad egg," like Veruca Salt.  ("Salt's my name - I'm in noots [nuts]").  I think Veruca's father frightened me the most.  Augustus?  I did think he was funny, because I was in no danger of diving into a chocolate river against my mother's ineffective protests.

To be totally fair, these original Oompa-Loompas and Gene Wilder as the original film Willy Wonka are horrifying.  Their eyebrows are white, their hair is green, and their skin is orange.  They look completely insane, and Gene Wilder is more than convincingly crazy.  The scene at the end where he berates Charlie truly terrified me.  I thought it was real, and I didn't comprehend anybody "testing" anyone the way he'd "tested" Charlie and his Grandpa.  It was mean, and his soft-voiced anger and turned back really scared me.  His big blue eyes made me think he was nice, and I agreed that the bad kids should have had "bad things" happen to them, since I was a LOT closer to the movie Charlie than any of those pushy, loud-mouthed, selfish characters.  So, when he really "tested" Charlie right before the end of the movie, it really alarmed me.  I think I had nightmares about NOT passing the test and being thrown to the workhouse in the dark, or set wandering in dank, cobblestoned alleys . . .

The Oompa-Loompas are scary because they are child-sized, yet they are completely unsympathetic, look weird and act even weirder than they look.  It didn't help that, at the same time, there were Star Trek aliens with the same freaky appearance.

These aren't over-tanned hippies.  They're aliens that worshipped an alien computer called "Vaal" in one of the classic original Star Trek episodes.  They were supposed to be innocent and unspoiled, yet also willing slaves of this super computer "Vaal."  Basically, they just seemed brainless, had weird white hair, orange skin, and inexplicable face paint (later to be seen in Pirates of the Caribbean, I think - or sort-of).  They had white eyebrows too.  Scary.

Anything that is out of the ordinary or unexpected can be funny or delightful, but it can also go wrong and be scary.  It's hard to say whether or not Gene Wilder meant his original Willy Wonka to be scary, but I think he probably did.  I learned that the original script for the film was written by Roald Dahl, and his stories for adults were often quite scary, and stories for children always contained dark elements.  

I'm not sure whether being scary is a good thing or not, when entertaining children.  I guess the rule of thumb is - if it gives the child nightmares, it is probably too scary.  I had Oompa-Loompa nightmares, and I also had nightmares about horror films I supposedly wasn't allowed to see, like The Blob.  The Blob chased me all over my dreams, and I also had nightmares about "Inner Sanctum," which was a show I never saw, but with which my brother used to terrorize me by making the oven door creak and saying in an ominous voice, "Inner Sank-Tummmm."  Brrr!  And of course a short time later I could not wait to get home after school and watch Dark Shadows and all manner of other cheesy horror films.  But that's a story for another day.

80's Music . . . 80's Movies

I've got some pretty classic stuff from the 80's, including my prized black velvet jacket from Judy's (size 4).

I heard a lot of music back then, especially being a club and radio DJ.  However, this song, "Voyage, Voyage" by Desireless didn't stick with me.  I can't imagine why, after watching this video that has almost SIX MILLION VIEWS on YouTube.  The female singer Jeanne Mas is supposedly an inspiration for a famous game character and is also referred to as the French Madonna.  Watch carefully at 3.06, you will see another special friend . . . the ever-great actor, David Caruso (CSI Miami - of "Steeevie" fame).

Who remembers this 80's classic?  "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung.  Now, ya think this "live" performance is lip-synched or not?

By the way, Universal Music disables embedding on their videos, with the results that the artists have less than 1% of the views that those that are not embedded have.

This little trip down memory lane also reminded me of a great 80's film, To Live and Die in LA, written and directed by William Friedkin, with a score by Wang Chung.  It's been so long since I saw the film that I forgot it starred someone we all know well today from CSI (hmn - is that a trend?  See Caruso above):  William Petersen.  Don't die or anything, but . . .

Is that not just . . .

The film also stars uber-creepy Willem Dafoe.

 

Global Warming Cluster Map - Have No More Than 2 Children

Thanks to a really weird website I found via Watts Up With That, I saw an Australian educational map about things kids can do to prevent global warming.  Whether or not you agree with climate change theories or recommendations, most of the map's suggestions are things that everyone should consider, just out of good common sense.  

This map includes the cow, which does produce a lot of methane, and it suggests via the pink trail to the cow that kids should eat less meat.  But it's the red branch exploding out of the hot, sweaty, miserable Earth that caught my eye.

It says "use less," and includes such recommendations as "use a cloth bag for shopping," use recycled paper, cancel junk mail, and of course, the totally related concept of "Have no more than 2 children."

I think this map was drawn by an adult for children, not a child's drawing or creation. It's organization is odd and poor in more ways than the obvious mis-inclusion of reproductive plans on the same branch as shopping bags, junk mail and paper.  Up at the top, it has "good travel" and "bad travel," and the uppermost item is an airplane in the middle of a reddish cloud, a frowny face, ugly trailing clouds similar to those produced by Mr. Steer, and the words, "Don't fly."  Where this came from, when buses are supposedly OK, I do not know (carbon footprint per-person, flying on a regular flight, is not so bad - and where's the train in this equation)?  Now, no personal Learjets, yes - that is a little excessive.

That's a great thing to tell kids in Australia, isn't it?  If they want to leave, what are they supposed to do, paddle to Papua New Guinea in an outrigger made from recycled diapers?  Yes, that's another suggestion I saw on the same blog that the drawing came from.  A lot of people might make something out of the above picture - but having worked for educational publishers - WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?  Children take things literally, and there's no telling how many kids in Australian schools have looked at that picture and thought that they should have no more than 2 children, and they shouldn't fly.  Oh - and that upper left-hand corner - "Watch an Inconvenient Truth".  Oh, for heaven's sake.

Also, kids should be aware that the adult fight over climate change is super-nasty, and shows some of the worst behaviors people have offer, which cannot mean anything good for anybody.  But they will not be made aware, and their education is going to be presented by a guy who does NOT live sustainably (Al Gore), and . . . just . . .