Poem "A Mountain View"

Sunset

  Sierra Nevada

  snow on the soft blue range,

Sky, keep your glittering

  moon for awhile,

  Don’t let the mountains change

 

Rose Burgunder

image from photography nationalgeographic.com

Poem "Clouds"

image from wikipedia
Can't find this poem anywhere on the internet, so here it is

Like anxious old ladies

late to Sunday meetin’

the clouds scurry across the

stair-steps of the sky

with their vapour-skirts trailing

behind.

Latayne Colvett

Exerpts from "If You're Not From the Prairie" by David Bouchard Canadian Poet

If you're not from the prairie, you don't know the sun, you can't know the sun.
Diamonds that bounce off crisp winter snow
Warm waters in dugouts and lakes that we know
The sun is our friend from when we were young
A child of the prairie is part of the sun
If you're not from the prairie you don't know the sun.
.......................

If you're not from the prairie you don't know what's flat, you've never seen flat
When travellers pass through across our great plain
They all view our home they all say the same
"It's simple and flat!" They've not learned to see
The particular beauty that's now part of me
If you're not from the prairie you don't know what's flat.
.......................

So you're not from the prairie and yet you know snow you think you know snow?
Blizzards bring danger as legends have told
In deep drifts we roughhouse, ignoring the cold
At times we look out at great seas of white
So bright is the sun that we squeeze our eyes tight
If you're not from the prairie you don't know snow.
........................

If you're not from the prairie you can't know my soul
You don't know our blizzards, you've not fought our cold
You can't know my mind, nor even my heart
Unless deep within you, there's somehow a part
A part of these things that I've said that I know
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow
Best say you have - and then we'll be one
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.

David Bouchard

Description of New York from Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

image from Wikipedia

"New York City is the most fatally fascinating city in America.  She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country...constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther."
....
"The last efforts of the sun were being put forth in turning the waters of the bay to glistening gold; the green islands on either side, inside of their war-like mountings, looked calm and peaceful."

From The Autobiograhy of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson

"The crowds, the lights, the excitement, the gaiety...to some natures this stimulant of life in a great city becomes a thing as binding and necessary as opium is to the one addicted to the habit.
It becomes their breath of life; they cannot exist outside of it.  Rather than be deprived of it, they are content to suffer hunger, want, pain and misery; they would not exchange even a ragged and wretched condition among a great crowd for any degree of comfort away from it."

From The Autobiography of am Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson

image from wikipedia

Two Poems About Being Gentle with Animals

From "Snake" by D.H. Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
.....
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more

That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
.....

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
......

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

.... 
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords

Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Little Things is the poem I would tell my children when we saw an animal killed by cars

or in the city.

Little Things

Little Things, that run and quail,
And die, in silence and despair!
Little things, that fight and fail,
And fall, on sea and earth and air!
All trapped and frightened little things,
The mouse, the coney, hear our prayer!
As we forgive those done to us,
- the lamb, the linnet and the hare -
forgive us all our trespasses,
little creatures, everywhere!

by James Stevens, 1926

From Yale Review of "Exploited-Migrant Labour in the New Economy"

"Governments of the wealthiest nations have created multiple dilemmas for their countries, their workers, the migrants and democracy itself.
.....
Citizens in wealthy nations are divided between those who want to close the gates on immigration and those who welcome the newcomers
....
the ambitions poor in this unequal world are willing to risk their lives to improve their lot.  Haphazard enforcement...[does] little to dissuade job-seekers...anticipating tedious, revolting and even dangerous work.
...such immigrants hope that their sacrifice is temporary...jobs mean survival in the modern world....  Ordinary citizens can only witness the rising inequality an degrading values that accompany a 2-tier class society.  Governments easily claim that the newcomers from other countries have no rights so the immigrants become a convenient foe...

Employers large and small take advantage of undocumented workers willing to work for low wages and yet the wealthy respond as though their communities were under attack by those who flee poverty in their homelands.  That attitude suggests that the workers don't mind the exploitation."

Excerpts from Yale Global Book Review by Susan Froetschel
"Exploited--Migrant Labour in the New Economy by Toby Shelley

Meaning of "To Make a Dog's Dinner" of Something

Means to make a real mess of something.

Mostly British, but now we have so much BBC programming we start to see these expressions

From "The Rabbi's Cat" by Joann Sfar

"You know what?  We should live like hermits in a cave...

"No, Allah wouldn't be pleased.  We'd be like Jonah, preferring things to people"

"So?  Can't we say we've served others, they wear us out, we're old and want peace?"

"No."

"When you see new things, look and don't speak right away.

....you could look in silence"

"neither speak nor express an opinion?  I've never done that."

The painter is happy...he paints countless landscapes.  

"This is the desert.  What can you paint here?"

"The colour."

"Blue for the sky, blue for the dunes, that's dull."

"I can use other colors too.  And I can swap the dunes' calm lines for something else."

"Why come here to reinvent everything? You could have done exactly the same in Russia."

"No. Not exactly."

"I prefer looking at nature than your daubs."

"Me too.  That's why I observe closely before I begin."

Asterix

Even better than Google

Avoid Mixing Homonyms in Expressions, and All About "Eggcorns"

Mixing homonyms is similar to the effect of "misheard lyrics" 

(also called Mondegreens) 

Eggcorns is a newer term 

described in this article  

meaning misheard words that still retain their original meaning  

(the word eggcorn is still recognizable as acorn, as long as it has a context)

Like:

 it's a doggy-dog world (instead of dog-eat-dog world)

I like "all-timers" instead of Alzheimers  

"Southern Peru gives us one of their best cymbals"
image from your mum, eating out in Peru.  

The translator has switched cymbals for symbols.
I might excuse the error since translating menus is no easy task, and this was overseas,
but I see examples like these
constantly
out there in the internet wilderness:

"the utensil serves a duel purpose"
(it should be dual, meaning 2 purposes)

 I need to tell you the backs story
(should be back story, as in background)

Our industries pray on
(prey on, as in bird of prey)

police found cashes of stolen items
(cache/caches meaning hidden in a secret place, from the French)

don't waist your time
should be: don't waste your time)
(This expression has 2.4 MILLION hits on Google.
See what I mean by internet wilderness?  really?  2.4 million?
Google is pretty smart and asks if I mean don't waste your time.

for all intensive purposes
(all intents and purposes) (that's an eggcorn)

these cookies are home maid
(home made)
Unless, of course, your employee prepared these cookies.

I saw this in an otherwise well-edited enjoyable book :
along with his cadre of confidents
(should be cadre of confidantes--people in whom he confides or trusts) from the French.

There is no excuse for this now that we have devices in our hands with processors more powerful than the ones that put man on the moon.

you need to click over to this article "Word Up" from the Washington Post at least to see the clever cartoon.

Examples of Anguished English

Reviewing the menu:

"I'd like the "banana in a blazes with ice cream" please.

No, wait,
make that a pancake with rum, in a blaze if you don't mind."

image: by your mum
an actual menu from a nice restaurant in Peru

Imagery from the Book "Cannery Row"

"Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row.  In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light...cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground"

"around them the evening crept in as delicately as music"

"little water snakes slipped down to the rocks and then gently entered the water and swam along through the pool, their heads held up like little periscopes and a tiny wake spreading behind them."

From Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
photo courtesy of John Wise

Mental Pyrotechnics

This is Boris Johnson whose wacky plans for fireworks on the Big Ben clock in London failed, leaving Brits confused New Years Eve 2013.


"Somewhere in a remote recess of his brain mental pyrotechnics were at play;
a sort of intellectual pin-wheel sprouted senseless ideas and suggestions of senseless ideas."
from The Chase of the Golden Plate by Jacques Futrelle (1906)

Tidbits from The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

"I woke beside a creek in a bed of kudzu vines.  A barge of mist floated along the water, and dragonflies, iridescent blue ones. darted back and forth like they were stitching up the air."

"farmhouses with wide porches and tractor-tire swings suspended from ropes on nearby tree branches; windmills sprouted up beside them, their giant silver petals creaking a little when the breezes rose."

"There was nothing I hated worse than clumps of whispering girls who got quiet when I passed....
...........I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one."

"I had asked God repeatedly to do something about T.Ray.  He'd gone to church for forty years and was only getting worse.  It seemed like this should tell God something."

"The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time out, the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life."

"orange and pink swirls still hung in the sky from sunset"  image from southern living.com

"darkness had settled in and the fireflies sparkled around our shoulders"

"cello music swelled out from the house, rising higher and higher until it lifted off the earth, sailing toward Venus"

"What happened when two people felt [pain] would it divide the hurt in two?  make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?"

Rosalita the Riveter

from Time Life Pictures Getty images as posted in NY Times May 21, 2006

They were welcome during WWII ..cast as heroic braceros..but in the 1950s Mexicans were rebranded as dangerous, welfare-seeking wetacks"

They Treat Us So Bad

Once, when visiting Teotihuacan near Mexico City, my friend and I stopped to chat with a vendor.  My Anglo friend told me (in English, and in front of the vendor) that I shouldn't buy because it was probably a fake.  I had no answer when the vendor responded "they treat us so bad, even in our own country."

"nearly every immigrant group has been caught at that crossroads for a time, wanted for work but unwelcome as citizens...but Mexicans have been summoned and sent back in cycles for 4 generations"

Picking cotton in Texas in 1919, image from New York Times

image from latimes.com


"They say that 'free trade' is supposed to help us.
We get manufacturing jobs like my son-in-law's at the General Motors plant in Silao.
That's fine with the American companies.
It's expensive for them to pay car workers in the States.

But when it comes to agriculture, this free trade is killing us...
the Americans refused to stop selling their cheap corn in Mexico...
more and more people will try to cross the border now,
to find work.
This, while the Americans are trying harder than ever to turn us back.

From Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs

Tidbits from "Orphan Train"

"the nubby white bedspread like braille under my fingers"

"You are as handy as a pocket in a shirt!"


about Lutheranism:
"I like the assumption that everyone is trying his best
and we should all just be kind to each other."

"...their wails penetrate my skin like tiny needles..."

"Dandelions dance like sparklers in the grass."

"he had yet to eat a chili that was too hot for him.
His taste buds were as anesthetized as an
Indian bureaucrat's conscience"

"He looked frail,
the bags under his eyes sagging
like deflated balloons hanging from a light fitting the morning after a party"

I Can't Tell What You're Thinking

"I have a very limited intelligence--
I only understand what people TELL me.
from The Duchess of Duke Street


......................................

depression is a symptom exhibited by

smart people thinking about their complicated lives

...

the result of a life examined.

Sometimes I make the mistake of

comparing myself to people who have things:

cars, houses...

but 

I have invested all my time and energy

in people,

and learning,

and experiences with my family.

And then I remember that those other people

have lives that consist

ONLY

of what I do not have

An Authentic and Honest Mother's Day Poem

Words of Complimentation

I was gonna write a poem,
but then I realized I can't write poems.
I bought this card from the store,
and forgot to send it.
I got hungry
so I ate the chocolates.

I got too lazy to water your flowers
Do you like them wilted?
I forgot your special day
and I partied at my friend's house instead.

Don't worry,
I'll send you a present in 2 weeks,
and then it will be mixed-up with someone else's mail.

But my heart's love will always connect
and that is 1,000,000 times more valuable
than chocolates.
Right?

p.s.  Can I borrow $20?

A Mother's Duty

"You must never be deflected by unpleasantness."
...........

"Although it may not be apparent to others, your duty will be as clear to you as if it was a white line painted down the middle of the road."

from The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag. by Alan Bradley

An Air Force Officer with Integrity

"He rolled along with every inexplicable order from his superiors,
every foolish act of his inferiors,
and every abrasive personality that the military could throw at an officer."

from Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

What's it's Like to Raise a Family in Two Paragraphs

"Those were the salad days...the sleepless nights, the wailing babies, the days the interior of the house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, the times I had 5 kids...and a wife in bed with fever.  Even when the fourth glass of milk got spilled in a single night, or the shrill screeching threatened to split my skull, or when I was bailing out some son or other...they were good years, grand years...One minute Marlena and I were up to our eyeballs and next thing the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college."

from Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

"So many battles fought, and for what?  Most of these battles weren't even for The Good Fight; they weren't part of the war against Satan.  The battles for which Nurse Verna girded herself in armor--both physical and spiritual--were battles that Nurse Verna fought in order to control the people, environment and events happening around her.  They were Verna's personal battles, not God's battles."

From The Girl Who Married an Eagle by Tamar Myers

The Pershing Chinese, a short overview

In the US, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 forbade absolutely any Chinese immigration for 10 years for both skilled and unskilled labour, and put new restrictions for Chinese citizens already in the country.

After the Exclusion Act expired in 1892, it was extended another 10 years under the Geary Act. In 1902, it was made permanent and continued to regulate immigration until the 1920s when the US Congress repealed all the exclusion acts but left a system of limits and quotas on Chinese immigrants.

Chinese immigrants who ran small businesses were often resented for their success both in the US and in Mexico. Because so few Chinese women immigrated to the Americas, some Chinese men married Mexican women, adding to the already explosive combination of discrimination and racism in both countries.  Chinese Texans (vulnerable to deportation, and barred from becoming US citizens) were frequently targets of persecution by politicians and businessmen who blamed them for poverty and corruption.

In Mexico, some Chinese had supported President Carranza against Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa, and were targets of retaliation by Villa's forces with reportedly whole families killed including Mexican wives.

On 19 March, 1916, Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico and the US responded with The Mexican Punitive Expedition.  The US Army was not able at that date to provide logistics for such an expedition so they advertised for labourers in a New Mexico newspaper.  Hundreds of Chinese immigrants responded and quickly cleared brush and set up a military camp

Chinese labourers also provided logistical support supplying hot food, laundry service, soap, towels and other supplies for 10,000 to 12,000 US troops, with 6,675 of these troops moving about 400 miles into remote areas in Mexico.  Also significant was the Chinese practice of boiling water to use in drinks, rather than using untreated water from local water sources.  This likely protected US troops from all manner of waterborne illnesses.

During the campaign, hundreds of Chinese living in Mexico also joined the expedition and supplied additional logistics support.  About 524 (numbers vary in different accounts) Mexican Chinese requested permission to return to the US with Pershing's Army in Feb 1917, fearing reprisal for having supporting Pershing's forces.

In 1919, Pershing, who now had the highest rank ever given to any member of the US armed forces, remembered his Chinese supporters and began a campaign to allow the "Pershing Chinese" to become US legal permanent residents as long as they worked for the US Army, thus helping establish legal precedents for immigrants seeking political asylum.


Sources
Chinese Exlusion Document
Who Were the Pershing Chinese
this Albuquerque Journal article
wikipedia

borne vs bourne vs born

BORNE is the correct spelling meaning "to carry"
as in
food-borne illness
or 
the empress was carried in a litter borne by 4 servants"

image from wikipedia

BOURNE is a last name, as in "The Bourne Identity"
or company names like "Waterbourne Real Estate"

It is not a British spelling vs US spelling,
but Google is so smart it will pull up both words in your search

BORN is how people arrive on the earth

Like Hitler's Germany, the current Russians are practicing a little bit of geo-political jujitsu.

"The US has something called the Monroe Doctrine, which says we're not going to allow any foreign activity anywhere in The Americas, and that doesn't just mean North America, that means South America too, that's ... a massive zone of control."  .........we've taken over places to defend American minorities before"

We understand the idea of  "sphere of influence."
"Buffer states" and "zones of control" are not a thing of the past.
We don't think they are old-fashioned ideas when it comes to our sphere of influence.

"When Adolph Hitler and the Germans (before the Second World War broke out) were trying to state that there were territories outside of Germany that should be handed to Germany;  the excuse that they used was that there were Germans in these areas...and they were being persecuted by their neighbours" (that was the problem with taking pieces of Imperial Germany and making them into new countries after WW1)

"So when we propose NATO Membership for  Ukraine, the Russians just have to sit back and take that?"

From Common Sense with Dan Carlin  podcast  22 March 2014 (at the 5-12 minute mark)

[my note: Also, think about the 1916 Mexican Punitive Expedition led by General Pershing into Texas  to protect US citizens living in Texas, which at the time belonged to Mexico]

"the politician's words were liquid indignation"...

------------

"...all the while cameras mounted on the high walls surrounding the property
peered into the interior of the car,
their lenses opening and contracting like sea anemones."

from The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken by Tarquin Hall
especially enjoyable in audio book.  This wonderful slow-moving series of detective stories (by that I mean, no car chases or explosions) is set in modern-day India with lots of social and cultural footnotes woven into the stories.  I also learned about Delhi traffic, gambling on cricket, and what a kitty party is

Convincing People

image from wikihow

"You may very well be able to domesticate a gibbon by repeatedly whacking it over the head with a hammer, but people respond less kindly to concussion."

You don't beat people up with a philosophy...you introduce them to it gradually...I'm sorry to say you're mired in the shattered cranium school of mentoring.
Take it a little easier in the future and I'm certain you'll have more success"

From Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill

"The sensible move would be to ...construct his homicide case the old-fashioned way;
with forensics, paper trails, and dodgy, self-serving witnesses."

From Bad Monkey by Karl Hiaasen

examples of Alliteration

"Swords shocked upon swords and shields"

"that blue blade that the king's son bears--but this blunt thing--"

from Opportunity Edward Rowland Sill

"a half-buried sting-ray streaking sea-ward in a gray plume of marl."

from Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

A Literary Fascination with Teeth

"The alligator paused with her blunt nose only inches from the camera's lens.  Even with her mouth shut, the lethal downward teeth were on full display, a crooked picket fence along her upper jaw."
From Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

What's with the fascination with teeth lately?

"the rocky line of his bottom teeth"
from The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

"he smiled showing a line of teeth that looked as if they'd been borrowed from different people's mouths."
from Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill

Extracts from "Killed at the Whim of a Hat" Colin Cotterill

photo from allpointseast.com travel specialists

"a puddle of pink was leaking out through the gap at the bottom of the night.  The sun was rising...and our sky was rushing through the dark tones in an effort to find something suitable to wear for the new day."

"It took so long to get there, I could feel myself aging"
(our protagonist convinces her grand-dad that she doesn't need to sit side-saddle on the back of the motorcycle)

" I was grateful that the expense and lost weekends of my MA course hadn't been totally in vain,  If nothing else, my analysis of George W's [Bush] oratory style had taught me that a sincere countenance and a confident stance was sufficient to distract your audience from the fact that you were talking rubbish."

From Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill
A delightful detective story set in modern-day Thailand, with George Bushisms sprinkled through

American Politics is Like a Video Game...how?

"The Xbox and the PS4
are like Republicans and Democrats.
Both are rubbish,
but you gotta pick one of them
if you wanna play the game."

From Michael, (a pretty well-informed middle-schooler)
image from this hilarious YouTube video by New York Times

Wishful Writing

"When writing about Texas, his pen dripped milk and honey."

from That's Not in My American History Book by Thomas Ayers

True Disciples of Jesus Follow Him to the Ends of the Earth

"True disciples of Jesus,' he said, 'don't spend their evenings sitting on over-stuffed sofas watching Ed Sullivan in TV.    Neither do they spend their weekends at the bowling alley drinking beer with their friends or out playing golf.  No sir, true disciples give everything they have to the poor, and then they follow Jesus to the ends of the earth."

.......
"It was a subject that made a lot of people uncomfortable, and since being comfortable was the American Dream, anything negative was to be left at the doorway."

from The Girl Who Married an Eagle by Tamar Meyers

"so this was the ancient language Moses had spoken.  It sounded heavy with Old Testament cobwebs."

from The Dybbuk  by Sid Fleischman
image from wikipedia showing text from Joshua 1:1

Make No Mistake, In Las Vegas, Panda Express is Mexican Food

Our David laughs when he says this--the vegetables are harvested by Mexicans, food cooked by Mexicans, eaten by Mexicans..Panda Express is Mexican Food.

"On Mondays, he liked to go up into China Town, just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made.  Crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons and a dozen varieties of cabbage; tended by Latinos in the central valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money."

From A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore


"The growing presence of illegal immigrants in home building, mostly working for small labour contractors, might help explain why government statistics have recorded only a small decline in construction employment, despite the collapse in residential investment.
'Technically they don't fire them' said Myrna Martinez, coordinator for the Fresno office of the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit organization working on social assistance projects for immigrant workers, 'They just tell them that there is no more work."

Picture and Quote from this New York Times Article.

"if you have legal work papers, there are many jobs for you in the United States.  You can be a farm worker where you get to test pesticides directly in the field."
quote from a sarcastic but accurate article at  ralphmag.org

"The truth is, they know we work harder than they do"

"God gives money to the wealthy because without it they would starve to death
from Crossing the Wire, by Will Hobbs"

I was incredulous to see this article here"..[Mexican town] offers visitors a chance to experience what Mexican immigrants go through when they illegally cross the US border....give curious tourists a relatively genuine experience"

Extracts from Anansi Boys

"He could see the sunrise beginning, a huge blood orange of a morning sun surrounded by gray clouds tinged with scarlet.  It was the kind of sky that makes even the most prosaic person discover a deeply buried urge to start painting in oils."

..........

"Each person who ever was, or is, or will be, has a song.  It isn't a song that anybody else wrote.  It has its own melody, it has its own words...
Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our own voices, or that our words are too foolish, or too honest, or too odd.  So people live their songs instead."

.........................

"It wasn't that people liked Grahame Coats, or that they trusted him.  Even the people he represented thought he was a weasel.  But they believed he was their weasel, and in that they were wrong.  Graham Coats was his own weasel."

From Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
picture from natgeo

Maze VS Labyrinth

In ordinary writing we use the terms interchangeably.  But there is actually a difference.

This is a labyrinth.  Visitors enter by a single entrance and follow the winding pathway until they arrive at a single exit point.  Some people enjoy "losing themselves" in the pleasant walk through a labyrinth.

This is a maze.  It may have several entrance or exit points and has dead ends. Mazes usually have lookout towers, so visitors can see the next steps in a maze. It is a real test of memory and problem solving.

images from wikipedia

On a mathematical note:  our own Brian J Skinner PhD and expert in all things math reminds me:

"you can make an easily-solvable "labyrinth" out of any maze just by keeping one hand against the wall at all 

times and following wherever it takes you.  Eventually it will take you out the exit."

Extract from "Geronimo's Story of His Life"

picture from indianspictures.blogspot.com

"I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honour was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust....
Soon I led a charge against them [Mexican infantry and cavalry]...In all the battle I thought of my murdered mother, wife, and babies--of my father's grave and my vow of vengeance and I fought with fury,  Many fell by my hand..."

Extracts from Geronimo's Story of His Life

"I have suffered much from such unjust orders as those of General Crook.  Such acts have caused much distress to my people.  I think that General Crook's death was sent by the Almighty as a punishment for the many evil deeds he committed."

S.M. Barrett who took down and edited Geronimo's Story of His Life (1906)  comments:

"This criticism is simply Geronimo's private opinion of General Crook.  We deem it a personal matter and leave it without comment..."
.....
"Geronimo accuses General Miles of bad faith.  Of course, General Miles made the treaty with the Apaches, but we know very well that he is not responsible for the way the government subsequently treated the prisoners of war."

Historical Note:  Geronimo surrendered more than once to General George Crook, but always escaped again.  It was Crook who tried to institute reforms on Apache reservations and was criticized by the US War Department for being too lenient with the Apache.  He was replaced by General Nelson Miles who then deployed 5,000 US soldiers, thousands of civilian militia and hundreds of Apache and Navajo scouts to hunt Geronimo's small band of 24 men.  Geronimo and his band surrendered in September 1886.

YourMom wants to know if a commanding officer is ultimately responsible for the consequences of his military decisions.

Chief Black Hawk and Geronimo had something in Common

image from wikipedia
"I am now an obscure member of a nation that formerly honored and respected my opinions,  The pathway to glory is rough, and many gloomy hours obscure it.  May the Great Spirit shed light on yours, and that you may never experience the humility that the power of  the American government has reduced me to, is the wish of him, who, in his native forests, was once as proud and bold as yourself. "
From the Dedication to "The Autobiography of Chief Black Hawk, by Chief Blackjhawk

Modern writing does not include attestations of veracity or certify accuracy of translation--
but the book "Autobiography of Chief Black Hawk" does.
Published only 1833, just 3 years after the Book of Mormon, it contains a certification of authenticity of authorship by the district clerk and a separate certification of accuracy of translation by the "US Interpreter for Sacs and Foxes."
It also contains a separate dedication by the author, "When my last resources were exhausted, my warriors worn down with long and toilsome marches, we yielded, and I became your prisoner."

image from okgazette.com see their great article here

The book Geronimo's Story of His Life, was published in 1906, three years before Geronimo's death.  It was written down by S. M. Barrett as dictated by Geronimo and begins with no less than 10 endorsements from  Army Officers and the US War Department, who permitted the publication, and includes a preface by S.M. Barrett who explains he had to transcribe the story as best he might as Geronimo would permit no stenographer while he told his story.

I had always wondered at the Testimony of the Three Witnesses and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses at the beginning of the Book of Mormon.  Reading these autobiographies published with the help of translators, helped me understand that it was typical for the times to have witnesses of authenticity and translation accuracy, especially in endorsing the source and accuracy of translation.

extract from "The Autobiography of Chief Black Hawk"

Published in 1833, it is the first autobiography of a Native American published in the US.
Chief Black Hawk saw american expansionism and fought to prevent his people from being driven off their lands.  In this quote he talks about the political entanglement that all tribes felt during The War of 1812 as Britain and the US sought allies among the Native American tribes.

"I had not made up my mind whether to join the British or remain neutral. I had not discovered one good trait in the character of the americans that had come to the country.  They made fair promises but never fulfilled them, whilst the British made but few, but we could always rely upon their word."

Chief Black Hawk, 1833

Is There a Ministry of Syntax?

A: "Didn't she tell you they have a department that handles syntax?  Probably an entire ministry."

B: "The Ministry of Getting Words Right?"

A: "Or it could be a branch of the Ministry of Making Things Up and Bamboozling People"



......none of these are worth investing adjectives on."

.....

That's what I admire about you politicians; figures at your fingertips, debates won at the drop of a made-up number."

From Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Collin Cotterill

"The politician's nightmare:  a requirement to give a straight answer."
From Imperium by Robert Harris

for the artist in you:
the cartoon is from worldpolicy.org, a tribute to Hocusai 's "Great Wave"

image from wikipedia

"your sister can do the job, but it takes a man's inborn carelessness to make a perfect baguette...Baking is art.

From Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

photo from dailymail.co.uk from an article called (oddly enough) "Sacre bleu! Traditional French Baguette is Now Available from Vending Machines" dated 8 August 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024081/Sacre-bleu-Traditional-French-baguette-machines.html

Asterix the Gaul was Right about the Roman Legions

image from Asterix.com

"By lost I do not mean to imply that the Ninth [legion] is somehow wandering around...trying to solve a navigation problem; what I mean is that they have been wiped out, defeated, decimated, destroyed and murdered to a man.  The Ninth has ceased to be...the Ninth has not been misplaced, the Ninth is no longer.

from Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

(It also made me laugh that this written to mirror the style of the "dead parrot sketch" by Monty Python

" 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!")

The Ninth Legion was (probably) founded by Julius Caesar in Gaul about 50 BC (Remember Asterix?) and fought the in Gallic Wars.  They also fought in North Africa, Spain and Germany.  The last known deployment of the 9th Legion was in Britain where legions tried to keep the peace, and likely helped build Hadrian's Wall

image from theguardian.com

We know the 9th Legion suffered a defeat at the hands of Boudica, and mostly likely the legion fought and died in Britain.    image from pbs.org

  

 Cartoon of Boadicea from Asterixonline.com

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (1954) was a plausible version of what happened to the 9th Roman legion.  Scholars have disputed that the legion was destroyed, suggesting that legionaries were settled, transferred, or that the legion was disbanded.  Some evidence suggests that some units, or at least legionaries, served in places like the Netherlands or Germany, but there is no evidence that the 9th was taken out of Britain.  Maybe Rosemary Sutcliff was right after all.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12752497

Thoughts on Old Women from "Cricket on the Hearth"

cartoon from dailymail.co.uk

"She remarked that she would not allude to the past...and that she would not say a great many other things...which she did say at great length...

"The majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe"

from Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens

"...politics is a country idiot capable of concentrating on only one thing at a time."

from Imperium by Robert Harris

"Desert Fox", a 4-day bombing campaign of Iraq in 1998, occurred at the same time as the Clinton Impeachment hearings.

Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister for 11 years but her most popular ratings were during the Falklands War.

"...More ups and downs than the ridges on a dragon's back and as many twisting turns as a dragon's tail.  A road like that is best experienced by driving fearlessly."
image from wikimedia commons

"A mountain range, spiny as an iguana's back..."  from Crossing the Wire, by Will Hobbs

"like the memory of a mistreated dog...I don't understand what happened, but it frightens me"

From Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

"Mom,
when you think of it,
we're ALL rescue puppies"

from Amy

Old Fashion vs Old-Fashioned

I saw it again today, this time on a website I really like; the wrong hyphened adjective.
The correct use is old-fashioned
But once recorded wrong in the memory it stays that way in the memory.
I guess.

Make a mental note:
old-fashioned.

Another Hyphenated Adjective

"...it's not much of a park.  Just this sloping-down grass place by the old millpond, with a statue of a guy on a horse.  Some civil war general, and he's pointing his sword at the pond like he's going to chase the ducks away."

From Max the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick

photo from wikipedia, (though it is of Lafayette, and not a civil war general)

Hyphenated Adjectives from MAX THE MIGHTY, and I FUNNY

When you were in grade school, you learned that adjectives were describing words and always preceded the noun.  red car

Now, you write more complex adjectives and find that just one isn't sufficient.
A well worn copy of a book with battered cover and curled corners to its pages becomes:
a "dog-eared copy of the book"
the book is not a dog ear, nor just a plain copy, so we hyphenate the adjectives making the imagery more concise and indeed, more visual.

From Max the Mightly by Rodman Philbrick we get:

"chain-link fence"
"quick-talking voice"
"boarded-up windows"
"rolled-up jacket"

We also get triple adjectives like
11-year-old girl"
"mom-and-pop deal"
"no-good, lying creep"
"out-of-control locomotive"

We can play with the order of adjectives like
"she moves slow-footed"

and how about this for conjuring an image:
"filled-to-the-brim dumpster"

I have noticed that recent books seem to use hyphenated adjectives more and more.
In I Funny by James Patterson we find
"the family's road-hogging, gas guzzling, DVD-playing SUV"
"dinner is usually something like tuna noodle casserole made with cream-of-wallpaper soup"

delightful

EXCEPTION you don't need hyphens with LY-adverbs working as adjectives
 like previously mentioned article
Grammar girl has an excellent article on hyphens here:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-a-hyphen

A Short History of Buffalo Soldiers (not the movie)

photo from wikipedia

According to the Texas State Historical Society, more than 180,000 African Americans fought in segregated units during the Civil War.   After the civil war ended , the peace-time forces retained 6 infantry regiments, (which were later consolidated to 2), and 2 cavalry regiments.

These regiments fought during the Indian Wars, which ended in the 1890s, where the Plains Indians called them Buffalo Soldiers.  Stationed in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and the Dakotas during the Indian Wars, they fought renegades, bank robbers, and horse and cattle thieves.  They protected stage coaches, payrolls, railroad workers and small towns. 1  These regiments also served in  the Spanish American War, including Battles in Cuba. http://www.history.army.mil/documents/spanam/BSSJH/Shbrt-BSSJH.htm ,  saw service in the Philippines, and Pershing's incursion into Mexico during the Mexican American war.

During World War 1 racial tensions in the US military actually worsened and US white troops fighting in France refused to fight with their Black counterparts.  Segregated Black battalions were limited to supporting roles, even though African Americans were willing to fight on the front lines.  Although African Americans were awarded honours for valor during the war, they returned to a high level of discrimination and the new NAACP was active in defending the rights of returning veterans with limited success.

With Jim Crow law pervading every aspect of US society, it must have been difficult for African Americans to serve in World War 2.  Newspapers in the US proclaimed there was racial harmony as part of war propaganda, yet African Americans who enlisted continued to be segregated.
Black newspapers urged their readers to support the war effort, while still calling on the government to apply Equal Rights to all of its citizens.  Many African Americans served faithfully and well, though they were still often relegated to support roles.

The severe shortage of troops in the most desperate fighting of the Battle of the Bulge caused General Eisenhower to send armed African American troops to fight with White troops in the same units.  It was an important step in the integration of the US military which occurred 1948, though the last segregated units were not disbanded until 6 years later.

don't confuse this with the movie by that name from 2003 which is an unrelated satire of the military

1) Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War 2 by Hondon B Hargrove, McFarland 2003

Also, be sure to listen to Buffalo Soldiers by Bob Marley "stolen from Africa...in the heart of America"

Langston Hughes was not "denied passage" as such. Why do we recirculate the same phrase?

As I searched information about Langston Hughes for the my recent short posts,
I kept finding the phrased "denied passage on a ship because of his colour"  or "denied ship"

This tidbit is posted and reposted as though they are all borrowing from each other.

It doesn't take much searching to find an actual source.  
In The Collected Works of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes he says:
"if I had to work for low wages at dull jobs, I might  just as well see the world, so I began to look for work on a ship."  he signed to a ship in New York only to find this particular ship was tied up all winter, leaving him lots of time to write.  "I was the only Negro in the whole fleet" he wrote. 2

 Eventually he travelled to the Western coast of Africa and his travels in those ports make interesting reading.  Hughes returned "with a better understanding of the complexities of race and Africa's colonial rule..." according to Langston Hughes edited by Harold Bloom 1

In 1924 Hughes worked on a ship leaving New York for Europe.  He jumped ship in Rotterdam, Holland, and went to Paris where it seems he found a love for Jazz.  (Remember I mentioned there was another Renaissance among the Black intellectuals in Paris?)
Alain Locke joined him in Paris and the two set off to tour Italy.  Hughes' passport and money were stolen on the train, and he had neither money nor papers to book passage.  Locke left him a little money and continued on the tour. Langston Hughes thought working on a ship  would be the best way to get back to new York, "but none of the ships were hiring Blacks." 1

Hughes lived by his wits (and that's another interesting story) until finding a job on a ship with an all-black crew, finally returning to New York to find he was now well known for his poetry.

All day long at school I tell students this:  "don't just look for re-posts of something--go find the original source."

Sources (NOT MLA)
1) Langston Hughes, by Howard Bloom, New York, Broomhall, PA, Chelsea House, Northam, Roundhouse, 2003

2) The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, The Big Sea, vol 13, University of Missouri, September 2002,

Originally named POEM, later renamed YOUTH, by Langston Hughes Also MY PEOPLE

Statue created in 1975, in Lawrence Kansas, portraying Langston Hughes as a boy holding a book by W.E.B. DuBois, delivering the Saturday Evening Post  

We have tomorrow
Bright before us
Like a flame

Yesterday, a night-gone thing
A sun-down name

And dawn today
Broad arch above the road we came
We march!

published as Poem in 1924, and as Youth in 1932

photo of Tuskegee Airmen from Wikipedia.org

My People

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people. 

I, TOO, SING AMERICA with a Little History of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes lived in Harlem 1928-1930 and was an important voice during the Harlem Renaissance. 

When he expressed interest in the principles of social equality of communism, he was investigated by Senator McCarthy's Committee during the communist scare of the 1950s.  

(Please remember that McCarthy was known for ignoring due process of law and investigated or intimidated a lot of people)  

By the 1960s Hughes was recognized for his literary contributions and was named cultural representative to Europe and Africa for the US State Department, travelling around Europe, China, Japan, Russia and Western Africa. 

According Legacy: Treasures of Black History edited by Thomas C Battle, Hughes was robbed of his papers and money after falling asleep on the train from Genoa, Italy to Paris, France.  When he tried to get a job on a freighter to return to the US he was refused work, watching white sailors get jobs instead. Discouraged, he wrote I, Too, Sing America on the back of a letter to Alain Locke

Hughes finally returned on a steamer with an all-black crew in exchange for passage with no pay, and his poem was published in 1925 

 

photo from NPR.org

photo from operationhope.org

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.