'Comites' Before 'Clodia'

Catullus' poem 11 continues his post-Lesbian life. If poem 8 is Catullus enduring the psychological travails of the breakup, poem 11 is his drunkenly exaggerated thanks to his friends, followed by a relapse into bitter anger.

Furius and Aurelius seem to have assured Catullus that they have his back, in a "bros before hoes" manner, and suggested a road trip. Although the actual suggestion is more likely to have been a trip to Baiae rather than Bithynia, Catullus exaggerates this offer to cover the entire world. It is unclear whether this is happily drunken fraternity or a test born from Catullus' lingering insecurity. The epic language and scale of the proposed world tour (11.2-12) could suggest either possibility. A world tour, however, is not what Catullus wants his friends to do; what he really wants is the delivery of an abusive message (11.15-24) to his former lover.

This message begins somewhat elegantly (11.15-11.17), as though it were a neoteric poem within another neoteric poem. The last word of 11.17, "moechis", marks the descent into abusive language. First, Catullus refuses to believe that Lesbia's sexual liaisons could have any element of true love (11.18-20), and then witholds the love he alone possesses (11.21). The last image of the poem, a flower in a field which has been fatally damaged by a plow (11.22-24), indicates not only sexual congress and the generation of a precious and beautiful thing, but also an affection that is dying, rather than dead, in Catullus' heart.

Shining Suns

Catullus, in the eighth poem of his collection, has encapsulated the complicated feelings of a messy breakup. The poem opens with a wonderful expression (8.2), which may or may not be a proverb:

quod vides perisse perditum ducas
"what you know has died you should consider lost"

This is excellent advice, but cold comfort to one who had lost something precious.
Such sentiments, rather than sufficing - it is only the second line, after all -, spurs Catullus to dwell on what is lost. The perfect tense of "fulsere" establishes the connection of the past and present, while the following imperfects provide a sense of both pastness and frequency; it is notable that Catullus is the passive partner in these activities.

In line 8.9, Lesbia has rejected Catullus; Catullus retains his feeling of impotence, and even his attempts to get her back (8.10-13) are impotent and his self-pity pathetic. He must announce his renunciation of her to make it stick. The embarrassing antics of jilted lovers trying to revive the sparks ("soles") of a dead relationship is mixed with wavering self-confidence.

In lines 8.14-18, Catullus turns from strengthening his own resolve to degrading that of his former lover. Although the descent into rhetorical abuse is a stylistic demand of this poetic genre, it is also a realistic psychological depiction, the dark side of the irritating presumption of a unique relationship that lovers often display. It is testimony to the passion of the relationship that Catullus ends the poem not with a final sting to Lesbia, but one last reminder to himself (8.19).

Ad rem Aegyptiae intelligendam

One of the forms of the Egyptian verb, and one which we recently studied, is called the "pseudo-verbal" form. This consists of a limited number of prepositions followed by the Egyptian "infinitive". The citation forms for the most common pseudo-verbals are transliterated conventionally as "Hr sDm", "m sDm", and "r sDm". Although it is difficult to describe concisely an English structural parallel, students of the Romulan tongue might find a better comparison between the Egyptian pseudo-verbal form and the Latin gerundive.

In this case, the Egyptian forms "Hr sDm", "m sDm", and "r sDm" correspond (with due allowance for prepositional semantics) to the Latin forms "de aliquo audiendo", "in aliquo audiendo", and "ad aliquid audiendum". The Latin trio, however, is crippled in its syntactical ability compared to that of the Egyptian, which can support a complex noun phrase.

Since the meanings of the constructions differ, I am presenting this as a mnemonic rather than a detailed grammatical analysis.

Strangers Passer-ing In The Night

Ash Wednesday, and instead of penitence my thoughts turn to the passer poems (2 and 3) of Catullus. Since I was assigned poem 16 for St Valentine's day, I must wonder if the class is not meant as some sort of cosmic counterpoint. Maybe it's just part of the Chairman's plan (Philip K. Dick is always a good source of metaphors for the action of the Powers that be).

What can we make of poems 2 and 3? The first is a mock hymn, the second mock dirge, both of which follow upon the heels of poem 1. If poem 1 is a dedicatory epigram which provides the name of the dedicatee, the genre, and a devout desire for the work to last, then poem 2 is an invocation to the mortal goddess of the work. If poem 2 announces Catullus' infatuation with Lesbia, poem 3 describes its irrevocable end. These poems are as programmatic as poem 1 by providing the plot, such as it is, of a work characterized by variatio.

The passer, whose msgical companions pull the chariot of Aphrodite, appears only in these two poems because he has encompassed the entire book by being the book itself. The passer also represents the amores in the sense of physical poetry. That which Lesbia holds in her lap, to which she offers a finger, that which is a beloved comfort to her is the material on which Catullus' poetry is written. If we subscribe to this interpretation, the non-passerine lines 11-13 are not an aberration of overzealous annexation, but rather an appropriate comparison between the passer of Lesbia and the golden apple of Atalanta, both of which were instruments of unbinding girdles. The passer in poem 3 encompasses both the death of the poet as passer and the death of the poetry itself as evidence of a still-living affair. The terms with which the poet eulogizes the passer are actions characteristic of the lover (although the comment about being closer than family acquires ambivalence if Lesbia and Clodia are the same). The imprecation against Hades can be both metapohorical and literal: both the death of a pet bird and a love affair are things which cannot be undone.

Best of the Bath-Thieves

I am greatly enjoying re-reading Catullus, although his subject matter often restrains me from public translation (at least aloud) into English. The two poems of which I speak here are poems 15 and 33, which share the hendecasyllabic meter and themes of breach of trust and travelling (forced or otherwise).

Poem 15 is about breach of trust. Catullus has entrusted his lover (I apologize for the euphemisms, but I know a few minors have found my blog before) to Aurelius while Catullus goes travelling. If I were inclined to attribute absolute historicity to individual poems of the Catullan corpus, I would say that Catullus displays extremely poor judgement in his choice of close friends - but then who knows how many of these violations Catullus himself committed? Lines 6-8 display an chummy elitism that suddenly descends into obscenity
in lines 8-9. This eloquent vulgarity continues to the end of the poem, where the ubiquitous labial plosives and nasals (p, b, m, ph) accumulate in the final insult of the poem (lines 17-18):
"quem attractis pedibus patente porta,
percurrent raphanique mugilesque"

In poem 33, Catullus wishes the titular bath-thieves, whose pricipal predilection to cutpursery is an inherent breach of trust, and whose other predilections are not fit for American minors to discuss, would leave Rome. The alliteration here is focused on p and q/c - the p's in particular are used to good effect(along with n) in the final lines (7-8):
"notae sunt populo, et natis pilosas,
fili, non potes asse uenditare?"

Hebrew, Hebrew Everywhere

This morning at church, soon after the service had started, the Hebrew words within me rose. It is a peculiar sensation, and perhaps one applicable to me alone, that once I learn a sufficient amount of a language, the words arise unbidden in appropriate contexts. The trigger this time was the Hebrew/English Sh'ma, in Max Helfman's setting. Once my mind was primed, it was easy to think "Shalom aleichem" at "Lord be with you". If you have learned some basic Biblical Hebrew, the linguistic structure of the Psalms (in this case 27:1, 5-13) is glaringly obvious. My mental translation is partial and in places doubtless ungrammatical, but it is remarkable how many phrases in the service are automatically translatable - I already have switched from hearing 'Alleluia' as a rote response to an imperative plus the Name of the Most High.

Washo, Simplified

I posted recently on my mental test of Washo, but it seemed appropriate to separate the results of that test from some speculations which arose from the difficulties experienced, cross-fertilized with thoughts from John McWhorter's Great Courses lecture series "The Story of Human Language" and some browsing of articles on Riau Indonesian. As I scoured a my gray fields for words in Washo, I thought to myself that simplified languages (creoles, mixed languages, and pidgins) start with a reduction of vocabulary to essentials. I recalled the words for "eat", "drink", "go", "have come", and so on, but remembered little of the specialized vocabulary. I remembered the words for "tree" and "rock", but not the species of those genera. The other possible simplification which I noted (but resisted for the sake of completing my test) was the difficulty in remembering the subject-object prefixes. Were I not such a diligent amateur linguist, I might have decided to forsake the daunting prefixal pine barrens in favor of the independent pronouns, easier to use. Why say "labali'a'" "he shot me", when you can say "le bali'a'" "he shot me", without having to consider the appropriate subject-object prefix and vowel harmony? I love the complexities of language, but that choice is based in aesthetics not pragmatism.

In reality, I could not imagine a mixed language developing which contained Washo as a component: the native speech community was too small and the Ute-Aztecan tribes around the Washoe formed a dialect continuum which offered a much better selection for a lingua franca - I am considering it for a Scout campfire. The Plains Native American seem to have preferred to learn Hand Talk (Plains Indian Sign Language) rather than yet another language with medium-complexity words such as "milelshymshihayasha'esi" "We two will not cause you to wake up."

A simplified Washo (and I am aware that the Washo with which I am familiar has already been simplified) would have the following features: it would be SOV, use independent pronouns where possible, and possess a reduced vocabulary. It would proabably use new words for negation and causation, since the current suffixes are too grammaticalized to survive (this isn't Esperanto, after all!). The glottal stop and the voiceless sonorant and liquids would disappear.

Washo Review

As I was waiting for a friend this weekend at a BART station, I found myself with substantial time on my hands. After I had paced up and down a few dozen times, I decided to do a mental review of the Washo vocabulary I knew. This was a true test, as I had neither the book from which I learned it nor the dictionary which I created for the terms I had learned. I decided to start with the verbal roots (although there is no true distinction between verbal and nominal roots in Washo), since verbs are often associated with actions, and perhaps my muscle memory would aid the big grey muscle in my skull. The verbs went well; I could conjure up most of the basic verb roots, even if I temporarily flipped the verbs in the wake/sleep contrast. I even went over the reduplication process for certain plurals, although some verbs, such as 'dance', did not lend themselves to such project.

I experienced some difficulty in remembering the various movement verbs, of which there are many in Washo, more than in Russian. My eye for language patterns tells me that all these movement verbs are ultimately connected, but I lack a sufficient overview to analyze them properly. It was difficult to generate several, and I am sure I missed few: perhaps this reduction is typical of individuals who do not speak a language well (and, Lord knows, I stumble over the words of the Washo tongue). It is nice to distinguish between various means of locomotion, but a simple 'go' will suffice.

As confident in my verbal score as I could be without recourse to a lexicon, I decided to try to conjugate a verb for every combination of subject and direct object. Although this task was made simpler by the lack of grammatical number marking on the verb, a characteristic of many Native American languages, I had to pick two verbs because the subject-object prefixes differ if the root begins with a consonant or vowel. I was successful save in one regard: I could not recall the prefix for 'he Xs me' if the root began with a consonant. Nonetheless, I decided that I had passed my test with an A-, considering how long it had been since I studied the material.

(I notice that I have not finished the drafts of posts on the Washo language regarding vowel coloring and the development of subject-object prefixes. I need to remedy that and add something on the reduplication process of Washo.)

Duty and Responsibility

I find myself in a solemn mood returning from The King's Speech, an excellent movie about George VI (Bertie) and his stammer. Although the focus of the movie was Bertie, I find my mind turning to the themes of responsibility and duty in the face of challenges. Sometimes we earn the rank bestowed upon us; sometimes we are not worthy of it. In either case, our duty is to perform our office as well as we are able, and not to shirk our obligations. If we neglect our appointed office, we make a mockery of our post, bring shame upon ourselves, and reduce our symbols of office to shiny trinkets not more valuable than a shiny tourist pin from the pier. Responsibility and duty means placing the needs of others before that of oneself, and by helping others we advance ourselves in experience and character.

MLK Hike 2011

I had hoped to post my first post of the year sooner, but unforeseen events interfered.

The first Pioneer trip of the year - a three-day, two-night trip to test the mettle of youth and parents! After a late start, we arrived at our starting point in Henry Coe State Park, the second largest state park in California. The elevation gained by car was quickly lost by foot as we followed the trail to Poverty Flat. First, however, we followed Fish Trail, which led over hill and dale and had a conspicuous absence of fish. Several creeks brought false hope, which were cruelly dashed two or three times. The ascent from the ultimate creek to the ridge spread out our line of hardy travelers, but the reward at the crossroads was a well-earned lunch. This time of repast also allowed a chance to repair and reinforce faulty footwear before one stitch became nine.

Once we had surmounted the ridge, the descent to Poverty Flat began. Those timid souls who have not experienced the joy of hiking may not know this, but a continual downhill trail is in many ways harder on the soles than any other vertical-horizontal combination. I have seen worse, however, in the scree of the Sierra.
Before we reached Poverty Flat, we had to cross a stream two or three times, an omen of the next day's journey. The crossings were challenging, but not terribly so.

The Poverty Flat campsite (for Poverty Flat itself lay above us) was on the floodplain of a small mountain stream and lacked any of the amenities familiar to car campers, save for the world's cleanest outhouse in the middle of nowhere. The night air down in the hollow was extremely cold, but we had almost enough light to read, thanks to the nearly full moon which shone in icy glory high above.


In the morning cold and damp, we arose, refreshed and reinvigorated, and consumed hearty breakfasts in preparation for the day's journey. This was the longest day of our trek, since a camper observing the Outdoor Code must camp where the campsites are, rather than bivouacking where he pleases. Our first ascent of the day followed the old cow trail out of Poverty Flat to a crossroads. After another steep descent, we reached a confluence of two creeks, whose combined flow led into the ominously named "The Narrows".

Here a decision had to be reached: whether we ought to go up, around, and down the hill to China Hole, or brave The Narrows. Apparently the tortoise we found there had waited longer than his life allowed. After much spirited debate, and information from fellow travelers who had come from China Hole, we decided to go through the Narrows. This would prove a challenge to the younger and older members of our group. The older Pioneers showed their skill in helping others across the more difficult stretches, despite a few spills here and there. The scenery within the Narrows was certainly dramatic. After we had passed two rocks that reminded me of the Argonath, a formidable challenge presented itself: wading knee-deep water or climbing a slick rock to reach the stepping stones further down. All eventually made it across, and only one simple crossing of a smaller stream remained.

China Hole was a pleasant resting spot, where we took lunch and dried the equipment made wet by our Narrows traverse. A different group, who had descended from the campsite where we had yet to ascend, was disporting itself in the water.

The ascent from China Hole began steeply in the shade, then sun, but soon changed into a steady climb through buckbrush, planted to stabilize the hill after the 2007 fire. There were patches of oak, but even the most ardent naturalist would be hard-pressed to remain excited about another half-mile of buckbrush high enough to qualify for the Hampton maze. Eventually we reached the turn off, which would have allowed us to come from Poverty Flat much more readily, but then where would one's sense of adventure be? Adversity reveals character, after all.

Our campsite on Manzanita Point was slightly closer to car camping than that of the previous night (this one had tables and firepits). There was no wind and the damp so evident in Poverty Flat did not exist here. Many Pioneers decided to sleep under the stars. Ironically, I, who am known for shunning tents whenever possible, had set up my tent in false expectation of having to share it. Once I had set it up, it seemed a shame to not use it.

The one disadvantage of Manzanita Point was the water supply. Whereas in Poverty Flat we had ready access to a moving stream, here we had to draw water from a brackish artificial pond slightly down the road. Doubtless this would have seemed a small inconvenience to our ancestors, but it was a new experience for many of the Pioneers, and they organized a task force to collect water. Inexperience with such inconvenience made a another expedition necessary, and one insightful young man made yet a third trip.

That night we had a proper campfire, although the program was rather short. I acceded to telling a ghost story, but begged for a couple of minutes to compose my narrative. It was not my most polished effort, but it sufficed, I think. I would certainly be willing to try again, given more time to prepare.

On the third, we rose again and broke bread. The early morning reveille helped to some degree with a quicker departure, but what happened in the end I cannot say. I had volunteered to go ahead with the water crew. Once the group united and continued on its way home, there was some grumbling about yet another ascent, which would have been anticipated (intellectually, if not emotionally) if the map had been studied more carefully. The younger Pioneers, however, plodded steadily along, trusting that they would reach the end of the 16-mile journey. We reached the cars, changed, and returned to the city.

Flashlight Hike 2010

This Saturday, a few (a very few) hearty souls set out for the Marin Headlands. The day was cloudy, but not particularly cold and free of rain. We ascended the first hill to the battery, where they have filled in the gun emplacement where once strange fish swam in dark waters. The view of the ocean was spectacular, and the crab boats did not seem so far apart from that lofty height. We continued to climb; the light began to dim, and the crab boats transformed from black dots to distant phosphorescent jellyfish. The path above the main road runs along the ridge, passing by the magazines filled with darkness and dank pools of water, lookout posts bereft of camouflage netting, and the collapsed roofs of old military shelters. These relics of coastal defense were the ideal sights for boys not yet brainwashed by the aggressively pacifist educational philosophy of our time. We continued to climb, and reached the Nike missile base. The fallen slabs of concrete platforms, which were in evidence last year, had been removed, and the site was safer, if no less windy, than it had been. After we had supped, we descended and increased our pace on the second leg of the trip. The trail was free of ruts, but noetheless steep in sections. Fortunately, we made the right choice at the fork where a wrong turn would double our overall travel distance. When we were walking along the side of the road, the party bus stopped for us, but we declined such softness and ease in favor of the long path to doughnuts and cocoa.

Gender Matters

All too often, English-speaking students of European languages detest the "gender" (really noun class) systems of the language, and in seeking to dismiss that which they neither understand nor love, declare the system irrelevant. A system of noun classes, whether composed of three or fifteen sections, may be confusing to second-language learners, but the distinct features of a language are never irrelevant to its native speakers. Pope Benedict XVI's recent announcement about the use of condoms illustrates this point. The original book was written in German, the native tongue of the Pontiff, but translated into Italian. In the German, the word used to indicate rentboys and their ilk is "der Prostituierte", a masculine noun, but in Italian, "la prostituta", a femina noun. The use of the masculine noun in German led some to assume the Pope was referring solely to the members of the Theban Legion, while the Italian use suggests it applies to women alone (since Italian, true to its sensual nature has specific words for male companions). Although a quick glance at LEO reveals that the German masculine noun may encompass both genders, much to the dismay of the feminists and Riistoj, this error in understanding shows the distinctions which noun classes provide to their tongues.

(For those of you who must know, the Pope said his comments applied equally to the sexes, and condom use is merely a lesser evil than sentencing a fellow human being to a slow death through your own carelessness).

Camaldoli, Camaldola!

On Sunday, I met a monk, and not just a monk but a genuine hermit who had reentered the wicked world to write a book and share his knowledge with the world. This anchorite was a member of an obscure branch, the Camaldolese, of the Benedictine Order. This branch, about which I previously knew nothing, had been influenced by the Cluniac reforms, but did not take the step of forsaking their Benedictine brothers, as the Cistercians did. Though few in number, the members are filled with faith, if this monk was any indication. We had a pleasant chat about the desert fathers and eremitical training; the life of a hermit is one which cannot be assumed lightly or without much thought and prayer. It is not a life to which I aspire, but God calls us all in different ways!

O Pioneers!

While waiting for the Junior Woodchucks to organize themselves one Saturday morning, the tourists, joggers, and general vagabonds were passing by and descending to the Temple of Knowledge or entering San Francisco's sacred groves. One gentleman, however, of robust years stopped and seemed glad to see our merry band. His reason, however, was different from the usual one; he was not contemplating Scouts and Scouting, but rather the Young Pioneers the Communist doppelganger of Scouting. This gentleman grew up in East Germany, a thoroughly Communist state, and apparently missed the sight of uniformed patriotic youth. The differences between Pioneers and Boy Scouts were apparent in his misunderstanding of Scouts; or perhaps he was overlaying his experiences on a quite different program. His emphasis was on joyful and enthusiastic patriotism, rather more strongly than ever was said in our legion.

Most of my knowledge about Pioneers comes from two sources: a book on Scouting and similar programs throughout the world, my college Russian teachers, and (believe it or not) the Russian fantasy series Nightwatch. The emphasis on patriotism instilled in Young Pioneers (their uniforms are neat, but then Nazi uniforms look sharp also) is the self-same jingoism that the president demanded and the BSA refused during the war years of the 20th century. In other countries, such as the Maldives, the patriotic angle may come into play more; certainly, all these organizations, if well-run, contain an element of outdoorsmanship, and potential leadership.

I was too distracted by my duty in loco parentis to engage in extended conversation with the German gentleman, but it would be fascinating to hear from someone who actually was a member of the Young Pioneers.

West Saxon Side Story

After the Beowulf performance, I found myself doubting my memory about certain features of the Anglo-Saxon language (I dislike the term Old English, as it implies more comprehensibility than it ought). So I took myself to the library to refresh my knowledge of Anglo-Saxon grammar and phonology. The most peculiar feature of Anglo-Saxon, in comparison to other Germanic tongues, is something called "vowel breaking", which affects the already rounded vowels /ae/, /e/, and /i/. By virtue of this process, the aforementioned vowels gain a following schwa and the new spellings /ea/, /eo/, and /io/, orthographic sequences which contribute the written aesthetic of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and confound the poor freshman studying pre-Norman history.

After I had relearned the constructed pronunciation of these diphthongs, both short and long, it occurred to me the peculiar (to my ear) vowels of West Country English owe much to vowel breaking. West Country English derives from the West Saxon dialect of Anglo-Saxon and it was that dialect which had the greatest degree of vowel breaking. When I was at boarding school, I had many opportunities to hear the staff using their West Country dialect, which I did not understand but nonetheless did not hold in contempt. At that time, I knew little about it except that these dialects tended to give voice to the voiceless consonants at the beginnings of English words; thus "fox" comes from the main dialect of Middle English, but "vixen" (a female "fox") comes from the West Country.

More recently, it also occurred to me that the perennial problem of English-speakers learning a Continental tongue, that is, the ubiquitous admonition of teachers and textbooks to pronounce long vowels as "pure" rather than with the characteristic semi-vocalic glide of the Englishman, may have its origin in vowel breaking. Although West Saxon exhibited the greatest degree of vowel breaking, none of the Anglo-Saxon dialects lacked it. This is speculation, however, and I do not presume to have evidence sufficient for a conference presentation.

Shadow Caitlin

Recently, I went to a new science fiction book club, for which I had read Robert J. Sawyer's WWW:Wake, whose human protagonist is a blind teenage girl. Although the book itself was mediocre, I found the assertiveness of the blind girl to be realistic, even while her genius was not. The world of blindness is filled with dangers, ranging from the annoying to the deadly, and those who must navigate such a world often develop superb analytical skills. They also often develop an assertiveness bordering on rudeness, since most sighted people have never had consider the challenges the blind face. As my uncle once told me (in more colorful terms than I dare post here), you can't put one over on a blind person; reading non-visual cues is a way of survival.

The genius of the protagonist did irritate me slightly. Although all teenagers, at least part of the time, think that they are the smartest person on Earth, the tendency for any computer-savvy teen in a work of fiction to be a genius is absurd. The temporal exigencies of television programs mandate a facile ease with computing, but a written book need not bow to that god. Perhaps this is a example of Clarke's Law, not between men and godlike aliens, but between author and much younger character?

Hwaet!: Review of Beowulf

Sometimes I forget how blessed I am to live in the Bay Area, with its plethora of theatrical options. On Friday night, I went with L. to Beowulf. I had planned to meet up with a fellow member of the SF Language Lovers Meetup group, but the exigencies of getting to the theater prevented this. The performer, Benjamin Bagby (whose name makes me think of the Hobbit), sat on a spare stage. A screen with supertitles hung over him; I am not sure which translation he had chosen. The performance was abbreviated to 90 minutes, since a full retelling of Beowulf would require the time my ancestors only had in the miserable wet winters. Bagby's voice was resonant and varied according to character and timbre of conversation - this is not an easy task while maintaining the metrics of epic poetry. Bagby took frequent breaks to refresh his throat, but the pauses were well worth the results. As Bagby continued to recite, I began to recognize more words without reference to the supertitles; this task was made easier by my familiarity with the plot. The performance was old-fashioned story-telling at its best.

Election Day

Today is election day. I have already voted, but some reflections on voting are in order. Voting is both a privilege and a duty. The deprivation of voting privileges in circumstances were others do not suffer the same disability is painful, especially when the decisions affect you. Think back to your childhood: were there not times when your parents overruled your desires? Were you not frustrated by this? This denial of will, however, is appropriate for parents, since the child is not wise enough to make an informed choice. It is no accident that many systems which lack elections invoke the parental model of governance. The Little Father of Russia brooked no subordination.

If the right to vote is granted to the people, then they are not political children, but political adults. The inventors of democracy, the Athenians, understood this: our word "idiot" comes from the term for a citizen who refused to participate in the affairs of the city. As political adults, it is the duty of citizens to be as informed as possible about the decisions of this election cycle. This reason, along with the possibility of fraud, is why I do not support same day registration. The ballot, especially that of California, is complex, so I would give dispensation if someone did not vote for every position and proposition, as long as the ones on which the citizen voted are ones about which the citizen has informed himself as best he can.

The confluence of events, or one might say, my wyrd, has conspired that on the very day I am attending a reconstructed live performance of Beowulf, I learned about St. Chad, who is the alleged patron of elections. Ever dutiful in my pursuit of truth, even at the cost of a delightful pun, I looked into this matter. According to truthorfiction.com, there is no patron saint of elections, which is suitable: elections, after all, in the hands of God, preferably via the High Priest using the Urim and Thummim. Saint Chad, or Ceadda, however, is a real person, probably the youngest brother of Cedd (also sanctified), Cynibil, and Caelin. The alliteration of the names is an Anglo-Saxon practice, but their etymology is Celtic, suggesting a mixture of (presumably aristocratic) Celtic blood into the Anglo-Saxon ruling class. All four brothers were ordained, and two (Ceadda and Cedd) became bishops. While the careers of the brothers bishop is worthy of note, the more important data here is the two domains of the paternally-connected patron saints. Ceadda became the patron saint of astronomy, while Cedd became the patron saint of interpreters. The vagaries of English diachronics ensured some confusion between the two, and either could be construed as Chad (note the later spelling), patron saint of elections.

I have been preparing for this evening's live performance of Beowulf by rereading passages from my glossed text of Beowulf. A glossed text is anathema to serious scholars, but has certain advantages. The reader is more engaged in the text than he would be when distracted by paragraph 11.17 of the grammar or technical terms. A glossed text might work better when the reader already knows the story. The glosses in this edition do not resolve the kennings, but rather allow the reader to familiarize himself with the typical components. The actual plot of Beowulf is spare, so much of the beauty of the poem is in the style. The constant variation of components for indicating the same item is a vehicle of poetic utility, but I do wonder if it is not the ancestor of some modern English style. Could the admonition of high school English teachers that one should not use the same word for the same concept multiple times in a row owe some of its force to the love of inventive language seen throughout classic English literature?

People's Republic of Parasitism

In the course of my daily wanderings, I acquired a New Amsterdam Times. The international section contained an article on the latest shipment of food and aid to North Korea from the South.

The amount of food is paltry compared to the needs of the country, but the international implications disturb me. Ordinarily, I would extol feeding the hungry as a virtue, but the discord between the North Korean philosophy of juche and the begging of the North Korean government is stark. The Kim dynasty uses foreign aid as a way to propagate its regime while claiming self-sufficiency. Although the Christian aid groups behind the food delivery have noble hearts, the North Korean distribution mechanisms ensure that the food will go to those whose loyalty matters rather than those who are the hungriest. The suggestion of localized distribution is ananathema to a regime which believes in power and half-hearted Potemkin villages. Clothe the peasants, not the emperor!