Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is still widely revered even though his Elizabethan English is difficult for the modern ear to follow.  When I watch a Shakespeare play it usually takes me about 20 minutes before I begin to follow the language - and that is not counting the arcane references that are no longer current.

Another book that is in Elizabethan English is the even more widely read King James Bible.  I wonder if Shakespeare would have had this longevity if it hadn't been for the King James Bible which kept that "dialect" familiar in the English speaking world.

Perhaps more to the point, now that we have a more modern (and less read) Bible and King James is gone with the wind, will Bill be far behind?

The name game - 2

This is a repeat with one additional example below the starred line.  This is not to take a position on any of these issues,  just to point out the cleverness in the use of the language.

Choosing the appropriate title for your organization or group is very important if you are involved in something controversial. [Perhaps even if it is not controversial.  For example, people who play golf are called golfers which flows much better than say chess players.  But we chess players would probably not respond to chessers.]

 This post contains a few items like this and solicits additions to the list.

I think groups should be able to choose their own name. Up to a point.  The point is when they start to usurp other people's legitimate titles and roles.  Undocumented workers does that on two counts.  They are not all workers and "undocumented" is an attempt to make it sound like they are the same as a legal resident except for a little detail about papers.
Perhaps you have seen on TV a discussion in which one of the advocates says "undocumented workers" and the other says "illegal aliens" when they are both talking about the same group of people.  People also appear to refuse to use the word illegal and attempt to conflate the two categories (legal and illegal immigrants) which allows them to claim that if you are opposed to illegal immigration then you are opposed to legal immigration as well. 

You once had pro abortion rights and anti abortion groups.  Both sides got smart and went for pro choice and pro life.  Both of those seem legitimate and positive.

Any one born in this country is a native american so I don't like using that title Native Americans for the indigenous population of the Americas.  In Canada they use the title First Nations which seems quite appropriate.

Sometime in the last forty years the term sexual preference (which indicates choice) gave way to sexual orientation (which does not).

The gay rights movement's marriage equality was a stroke of genius.  Technically a gay man, G, and a straight man, S, both had exactly the same marriage rights before the current changes in some laws.  That is, each of them could marry a person of the opposite sex.  Of course, since G was gay, those were not the marriage rights that he wanted.  Marriage equality now means that each has a right to marriage with their preferred partner type.  [I wonder if the advocates of legalized marijuana could make a similar case for intoxicant equality.  That is, I should have the same right to my preferred intoxicant as you have to yours.]

******************

Another beautiful example is that global warming has become climate change.  Global warming is a checkable thesis.  If the temperature levels off then you have some explaining to do.  See Climate change scientists puzzled over lack of global warming during past decade.  However, climate change is happening all the time.   It always has been and it always will be.  Your thesis cannot be disproved.  Finally any one who disagrees with your conclusions is no longer called a doubter - which is a respectable position.  They are now labeled as deniers - which calls up images of the holocaust.

I would not argue that people shouldn't engage in these kinds of maneuvers. On the other hand, folks should be aware of the games that are being played.

The name game

Choosing the appropriate title for your organization or group is very important if you are involved in something controversial. [Perhaps even if it is not controversial.  For example, people who play golf are called golfers which flows much better than say chess players.  But we chess players would probably not respond to chessers.]

 This post contains a few items like this and solicits additions to the list.

I think groups should be able to choose their own name. Up to a point.  The point is when they start to usurp other people's legitimate titles and roles.  Undocumented workers does that on two counts.  They are not all workers and "undocumented" is an attempt to make it sound like they are the same as a legal resident except for a little detail about papers.
Perhaps you have seen on TV a discussion in which one of the advocates says "undocumented workers" and the other says "illegal aliens" when they are both talking about the same group of people.  People also appear to refuse to use the word illegal and attempt to conflate the two categories (legal and illegal immigrants) which allows them to claim that if you are opposed to illegal immigration then you are opposed to legal immigration as well. 

You once had pro abortion rights and anti abortion groups.  Both sides got smart and went for pro choice and pro life.  Both of those seem legitimate and positive.

Any one born in this country is a native american so I don't like using that title Native Americans for the indigenous population of the Americas.  In Canada they use the title First Nations which seems quite appropriate.

Sometime in the last forty years the term sexual preference (which indicates choice) gave way to sexual orientation (which does not).

The gay rights movement's marriage equality was a stroke of genius.  Technically a gay man, G, and a straight man, S, both had exactly the same marriage rights before the current changes in some laws.  That is, each of them could marry a person of the opposite sex.  Of course, since G was gay, those were not the marriage rights that he wanted.  Marriage equality now means that each has a right to marriage with their preferred partner type.  [I wonder if the advocates of legalized marijuana could make a similar case for intoxicant equality.  That is, I should have the same right to my preferred intoxicant as you have to yours.]

"Choices" by Alan Jackson

This is my favorite George Jones song in which he argues for responsibility over self indulgence.  

Apparently he inspired Alan Jackson to make a choice as well.

The following was taken from the first website below:

Published on Apr 10, 2012

At the 1999 ceremony, George Jones, just months removed from a near-fatal car accident, was nominated for Single of the Year for his autobiographical ballad "Choices." When CMA executives asked for Jones to sing a shortened version of the nominated song, he opted to stay home as a sign of his irritation at their request. Jackson, prompted by his admiration for Jones and his frustration with the CMA, quietly but rebelliously shifted into "Choices" halfway through his scheduled performance of his current single, "Pop A Top."

After finishing the song, he silently walked off stage while and industry executives and artists alike rose to their feet with a standing ovation. Jackson would exit the Opry house and not return for the rest of the evening. When asked later about Jackson's decision, Jones said, "What he did [at the CMAs] meant more to me than I could ever say. I was watching the show, and when he began singing 'Choices,' it moved my wife Nancy and me both to tears. He made a huge statement on my behalf, and on behalf of traditional country music, and didn't worry about what the consequences might be." In the war of art and commerce, Jackson chose to honor the humble beginnings of the genre when those values were compromised, and was justly rewarded with positive press as a result of his indignant, yet popular, actions that evening.

see it here

click here for the full Jones version

The Landay

The following is an example of a Landay - a type of sharp tongued poetry that can cost a Afghan woman her life.

       When sisters
                sit together,
  they always praise
                     their
                  brothers.

    When brothers
                sit together,
     they sell their 
           sisters
                            to others.

"A landay has only a few formal properties. Each has twenty-two syllables: nine in the first line, thirteen in the second. The poem ends with the sound “ma” or “na.” Sometimes they rhyme, but more often not. In Pashto, they lilt internally from word to word in a kind of two-line lullaby that belies the sharpness of their content, which is distinctive not only for its beauty, bawdiness, and wit, but also for the piercing ability to articulate a common truth about war, separation, homeland, grief, or love. Within these five main tropes, the couplets express a collective fury, a lament, an earthy joke, a love of home, a longing for the end of separation, a call to arms, all of which frustrate any facile image of a Pashtun woman as nothing but a mute ghost beneath a blue burqa."

Poetry Magazine

Caleb Johnson

Caleb Johnson Murray High School 1995, Cornell 1999, and Columbia 2008 is starting to get some recognition as a filmmaker. 
His latest short film, Root, is being shown by the prestigious SXSW and other festivals. 

  You can find out more about the film and scheduled showings at the laurel page.

Two Vignettes

TWO  VIGNETTES AT THE RAMADA INN IN

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS,

WHICH ILLUSTRATE THE COMPLEXITY OF

MODERN LIFE

I

(1978)

Coming back from Christmas,
I and my – for lack
of a better word—lover

stop here at noon on New Year’s Day

to watch the football games.

We are quarreling over something

I can no longer remember.

We will be back to back

before the Orange Bowl is over.

(Before spring,

it will all be over,

both of us defeated

in a game no one’s made the rules for:

living two thousand miles apart

in places we can’t leave.

Distance does us in.)

II

(1983)

For reasons too complicated to explain,

my ex-husband is driving me back to Texas

after Christmas in Tennessee.

We hit Little Rock with not much time to spare:

I rush in to register; he peels off for junk food.

We settle in just as the Cowboys kick off.

On the trip we have speculated

about whom the Democrats will run in ’84,

have argued over whether we should have built the bomb

once we knew Germany didn’t have it after all,

and I have learned that driving a stick shift

is not like riding a bicycle.

We are almost twenty years from the wedding,

some thirteen from the divorce.

But marriage is not the only tie that binds.

(Later, at home, someone will ask,

“But didn’t his wife mind at all?”

and I realize that’s the first time

the idea has occurred to any of the three of us,

and so I say, “No, I expect she was glad

to have the house to herself for a while.”)

Honoria, a local Murray poet

From Gib

This came from the Rev. Gib Field to a few of his friends.

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

John Donne, Meditation XVII
English clergyman & poet (1572 - 1631) 

Lincoln, the movie

I will add my voice to the cacophony that is saying, "Go see Lincoln."

"And Know They Love You"

Yesterday's post, "Teach Your Children", 
reminded me of a poem from the early eighties.

"And Know They Love You"

            (for  Glenda)

Pregnant at eighteen and then again 

before another year was out,

she told me once

that she had thought about giving her children away 

and joining the Weathermen.

It is a night sixteen years later: 
    we have taken over the stereo 
    and are playing sixties music.

   
    Crosby, Stills and Nash come on

    and when they get to "Teach Your Children Well" 
    I watch her son reach out and take her hand 
    and hold it while they sing,

    quietly, together. 

                                                                 Honoria

woman paints with sand

.
Try this for something a bit different.

You can also get to it by googling: woman paints with sand.
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The King's Speech

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I am one of those "I'm no film critic, but I know what I like." kind of people. I frequently wonder what the award givers saw in a film.

I liked Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice but ... .

The King's Speech is so good that even I could tell that it was good. That is, I could not only see that I liked it, but I could also see that it was a fabulous performance.

Colin Firth, and the others, brought the whole thing completely to life.
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