The More Than Missing Perfect

I am beginning to wonder whether Judd did not "invent" the pluperfect out of a desire for symmetry in his Westernized linguistic scheme; the pluperfect form was introduced in Chapter 6, but fails to appear in Chapters 7 and 8. This addition is not as an absurd notion as it might seem: the full system of Devanagari writing (which is used for Sanskrit) includes some signs which are present not because they are used in the language itself, but rather because the Sanskrit scholars were the ultimate marriage of grammar geeks and series completists and could not stand holes in their neatly arranged phonetic system, even though imperfect symmetry is typical of natural language systems. Hawaiian, incidentally, has a particularly asymmetric phonology. The Hawaiian future tense is introduced in Chapter 7, but does not appear in the exercises until the next chapter; thus if the pluperfect (introduced in Chapter 6) had appeared in the exercise for Chapter 7, no longer would I remain perplexed.

Chapter 8 introduces a full set of prepositions to complement the hitherto isolated i. Several of these possess distinct form with either o or a, but Judd has decided to refrain from further explication in this chapter. The use of each preposition with the noun ka hale, "house", appears as a 'declension'. Although this style of presentation is economical, an important consideration for Judd, and useful in distinguishing between the 'genitive' and the 'possessive', I am not convinced that 'case' is a valid concept here; it seems to me a table of prepositions and their direct object. I willingly admit that I could be mistaken in this matter, since I seem to remember that Japanese has a similar "case system". Possibly the difference between my perception and that of Judd merely illustrates the ambiguous boundaries of grammatical categories. The next several chapters introduce the "case system" of the personal pronouns, which should serve as a sufficient test for the presence of cases in Hawaiian.

Chapter 7
1. Ke nana nei lakou i ka omole. They gaze at the bottle.
2. Ua ike au i ke kii. I have seen the picture.
3. Ke noho nei oia. He sits.
4. Ke oki nei oia i ka eke. He cuts the bag in two.
5. Ke hana nei lakou i ka pahu. They made the curtain.
6. Ke haule nei ka pakeke. The bucket falls.
7.  Ua oki oia i ka paku. He has cut the curtain in two.
8. Ke ike nei kakou i kukui.  We see the torch.
9. Ke hoopaa nei oia i ka pulumi. They make fast the umbrella.

Chapter 8
1. Ke ike nei au i ka pahi ma ka pakaukau. I see the knife on the table.
2. Ua hana makou i ke ahi ma ke kapuahi. We have made a fire in the fireplace.
3. Ua lohe makou i ka mahu. We have heard the steam.
4. E hele kakou i ka hale. We shall walk to the house.
5. Ke moe nei lakou ma ka papahele. They lie down along the floor.
6. Ke ku nei lakou ma ka puka o ka hale. They stand by the entrance of the house.
7. Ke ike nei au i ka wai wela ma ke kapuahi. I see the hot water in the fireplace.
8. Ke haule nei ke kiaha mai ka papaaina. The tumbler falls from the dining table.
9. Ke kali nei kakou no ka wai huihui. We wait on account of the cold water.
10. Ua ike makou i ka umu. We have seen the outdoor oven.

Aloha is Just A Secondhand (Accusative of) Motion

Judd's chapters 5 and  6 introduce the the perfect (I have done) and pluperfect (I had done), although it does seem rather odd the Chapter 6 exercises do not include any sentence which contain the pluperfect. The pluperfect tense, in languages which possess it, is much less common then the perfect or past tenses, and possibly even unnecessary, but onwould think even a rare tense would appear in the exercise of the relevant chapter.

The matter which appears more prominently in the Chapter 6 exercise, despite its introduction in a footnote, is the indication of the object of the verb by the preposition i, or "to". The use of a directional marker to indicate the direct object is not unique to Hawaiian - in fact it is fairly common among the languages of the world as an as an easily grasped metaphor for an occasionally abstract concept. In Latin, for example, the accusative is used both as the case for the direct object and the case for motion towards a city (or small island). Although obscure hamlets and large islands require a preposition before the noun in the accusative case, the accusative case alone suffices for cites and small islands. This distinction provides a  middle ground between the use of accusative as a prepositional phrase and the accusative as the direct object; in other words, herein lies the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs.

Chapter5
1. Ua hahai lakou. They have followed.
2. Ua paani makou. We have played.
3. Ke hoole nei oukou. You refuse.
4. Ke nana nei au. I observe.
5. Ua kamailio makou. We have conversed.
6. Ke minoaka nei oia. He smiles.
7. Ua aloha olua. You two have loved.
8. Ke holoi nei laua. They two wash.
9. Ke wehe nei oe. You open.
10. Ua maa oia. He is accustomed ("is accustomed" is a single verb).

Chapter 6
1. Ke ike nei makou i ka hale pohaku. We see the stone house.
2. Ke wehe nei oia i ka puka. I open the door.
3. Ke nana nei kakou i ke keena moe. We observe the bed-room.
4. Ua ike lakou i ka puka aniani. They have seen the window.
5. Ke hoopaa nei oia i ka hale maluna. It holds fast the roof.
6. Ua nalo ka hale pili. The grass house is out of sight.
7. Ua hana lakou i ka hale laau. They made the frame house. (A fait accompli!)
8. Ke pani nei laua i ka puka. They two shut the door.
9. Ke holoi nei oia i ka lanai. He washes the porch.
10. Ke imi nei oia i ka hale kuka. He searches for the kitchen.

Last Trial of the Templars!

The hills are not alive with the sound of muezzin. The Swiss have voted against the further construction of minarets in their tidy little country. This vote applies not just as a regulation, but as an amendment to the Swiss constitution. The Swiss Constitution, based on what I have learned about Confederate govenment, probably does not possess the sanctity of that of the United States of America, but it is no doubt a serious matter to amend it if it requires a majority vote by population and canton. The resident right-wing party celebrated, as one might expect, and the media have forgotten that Swiss neutrality never meant Swiss tolerance or niceness.

What do the Templars have to do with this matter? There is no doubt that the Templars vanished quickly and quietly away in the aftermath of their dissolution, since many of those that did not were slaughtered by their creditor, the King of France. One possible destination of the missing Templars was the Alpine mountain range, a region whose importance derived from the limited number of passes between Germany, France, and Italy thorugh which armies and merchants traveled. I would never equate probability with certainty, but the presence of Templars in that region would explain the sudden appearence of a local sophisticated and secretive banking industry and a sudden rise in regional military success, both of which were specialties of the Templars. The military successes of the Templars, however, were never long-term, and their history was a series of stepped strategic retreats.

If the Swiss hypothesis be true, then the growing presence of Muslims in the last redoubt of the Knights Templar indicates the final defeat of the order which started in a Christian Jerusalem, an ultimate insult after the recent breaking of their banking secrecy under American pressure.

Foxy Luvers

In accordance to the familial mandates of Thanksgiving, I consented to accompany my progenitors to The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The difference between those who have a car, however, and those who do not, is greater than most imagined. I cannot claim a surfeit of virtue in this case, since I was briefly the sole passenger on the bus, but the mode of transportation still determines how much consideration is given to time of travel. In short, I arrived ludicrously early at my destination, a situation with which I am intimate. Since it was a familiar situation, I resorted to my default plan: find a coffee shop wherein I might abide. There were several other culinary establishments near the 4-Star, but all of these were either proper restaurants or involved drinking of the Dionysiac kind. I went to Luvers, which (contrary to what might be gleaned from its name) was a coffee shop rather than a business rival for Good Vibrations. Its interior is well-appointed, although I do not know what their usual customer profile is.

As for The Fantastic Mr. Fox, I enjoyed it greatly and did not find any indication of the Uncanny Valley in the stop-motion animation. I must confess that I have never read the book - my preference was The BFG - but one of the endearing traits of Roald Dahl's fiction is his refusal to pander to the "Children's Hour" censors. The anthropomorphised  animals of British fiction are less sentimentalized than their American counterparts, and that tradition shows in Fox. It also lacks the mandatory unqualified victory with which the American audience is besotted - or perhaps the American film industry, since Lord of the Rings made plenty of money.
George Clooney was an excellent choice as the titular Mr. Fox, although one does wonder if there were not less high-profile names who could perform the voice equally well. The bitter antagonism between Ash and Kristofferson, which had been added to the script to lengthen the still short movie, was a realistic portrayal of adolescent strife.

You and Me, Baby (or Maybe Not)

I love languages with duals! For those unfortunate enough to lack grammatical education, the distinction between dual and plural in relevant contexts is that the dual indicates exactly two items (with the possibility of innate pairedness, such as eyes) whereas the plural indicates more than two. One the memorable uses of the dual in Homeric Greek is the reference in the Iliad to "the two sons of Atreus" (Agamemnon and Menelaos).

I realize that the book I am using (The Hawaiian Language, by Judd, which I bought many years ago as a visiting keiki on Kaua'i) is somewhat deficient in the okina and macron department, but I'm planning a paper using Kaua'i legends and figure I'd better get used to those very deficiencies characteristic of some older source material. Besides, this grammar fits neatly in my pack.

So far, there are only four other grammar points. the first is the distinction in the first person, both dual and plural numbers, between inclusive and exclusive forms. The easiest way for you, dear reader, to understand this distinction is reminiscing on some occasion when a misunderstanding of "we" led to the awkward clarification that the addressee was not accompanying the speaker on his task. If you and your friend spoke a language (such as Hawaiian!) which distinguished between inclusive and exclusive uses, you would not have encountered this problem. If you had used an inclusive we, your friend would have basked in the assurance of your affections because he was coming with you; if you had used an exclusive we, your friend would have understand how callous and self-centered you were in departing without him.

The next two points are the forms for the verb. The verb comes first in Hawaiian (and Welsh and Klingon) and the surrounding words determine the tense, although I lack sufficient linguistic prowess to determine whether this analysis is too dependent on Western grammatical paradigms.  The indicative present in Hawaiian consists of ke verb nei subject-pronoun and i verb subject-pronoun Thus ke holo nei au means I run, ke holo nei lakou means they all run; i holo oe means you ran and i holo olua means you two ran. I suspect that the nei in the ke holo nei construction is actually the adverb nei, meaning the present time or place used adverbally, limiting the particle ke, which appears to have many particular uses, all of them verbal.

The placement of the subject pronoun (au, lakou, oe, olua) after the verb may seem strange to speakers of most European languages, but it ought not to cause distress. At some date in the distant past, the endings of the familiar Latin conjugations must have been more substantial separate pronouns which followed the verb.Over time, the pronouns eroded to the conjugations I know and love.

Now for the data (otherwise known as the chapter exercise):

Chapter 4

1. Ke ai nei oia. He eats.

2. Ke holo nei lakou. They all run.

3. Ke noho nei oukou. You all sit.

4. I hana oe. You did.

5. I olelo laua. They two spoke.

6. Ke imi nei au. I search.

7. I lohe makou. We all heard.

8. Ke haule nei oia. He falls.

9. I kali olua. You two waited,

10. Ke hoopaa nei au. I hold fast.

Not My Thuper Thweet Thirteen

There are certain distasteful elements which I had anticipated I would encounter when I agreed to go to a bar on Eddy, but I did not expect to find a birthday party for twin 13-year-olds in the reserved part of the bar, leading me to believe that I had been misinformed by the organizer of the group I had come to meet. Although the confusion over my meeting did not last too long, I remain baffled by the presence of 13-year-olds in the reserved section of the bar and the lack of wisdom of their parents. I am assuming that it was a legitimate party, and not one of the teen solicitation parties which I have heard about from TV programs on urban teen prostitution rings in the Bay Area, even if the girls (according to one of the members of my party) were dolled up in a manner similar to Britney Spears: the extreme propinquity of a hotel does raise my suspicions, since I did pass a massage parlor, the Century Theater, and a streetwalker before I climbed on the 38 Geary.

If it was a legitimate operation (which seemed to be the explicit thesis of my companions), what combination of coddling parents and self-involved teenagers leads to a celebration in a bar? It occurred to me that it could be some cut-rate double post-bat-mitzvah party, but I have no proof either way.  I am assuming this party was an indication of the solipsistic seeping down of the "super sweet sixteen" and the quinceañera, without any redeeming rite-of-passage value. Such parties, however, do seem consonant with the pandemic of minors in YouTube videos acting inappropriately. It almost makes you think that Grammie from Hounddog has a valid point!

Myth-understanding (I need an Aspirin)

Hollywood's remake machine has set its sights on Clash of the Titans. The remake itself is not what bothers me, since this movie was never a favorite of mine, despite my love of myth and legend. Strange versions of the Arthurian mythos bother me more. I am, however, concerned that this adaptation of an adaptation, like the light of mirror in moonlight, will have myth-obsessed fanboys up in arms about its (no doubt gross) misrepresentation of the mythological canon.

Let me say this up front: I love myths and have been reading them since I was eight years old. I started with Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse myths; moved to Yoruba and other African myths; and once was mocked in grade school for reading the tales of the Aboriginal Dreamtime in a book which featured Aboriginal art (which lacks the same modesty taboos as contemporary pseudo-Victorian society). Once I had moved on from Bullfinch, however, I learned from Graves and translations of the Greek tragedies and epics that ancient authors and poets felt no compunction at changing the narrative of a myth in order to illustrate their desired point. The backstory of Oedipus at Colonus cannot be exactly the same as the ending of Oedipus Rex, and the version of Oedipus in the Iliad is less flawed than the Oedipus of the tragic stage.

The outrage of the mythological fanboy, therefore, is not only unwarranted, but even untrue to the spirit of the nature of myth. The last outburst of such outrage I can recall occurred at the release of Disney's Hercules, which made the radical change of having Hercules as the son of Hera and therefore a god without terrestrial access to his own godhead. At the time, many complained that this was some desecration of the Herculean canon, although that canon includes Hercules as sage and barbaric, irredeemably stupid and unexpectedly crafty, in love with women and in love with boys. The syncretism of the Herculean mythos from the tales of strongmen of many cities prohibits a single interpretation of his character.

This lack of canonical exclusivity, it seems to me, is characteristic of myth in general. Although there may be general outlines, the teller of the tale is free to stretch or diminish portions to suit the point which he desires to make at that telling. Since Hollywood desires only to entertain (as judged by ticket revenue), it is natural that it would bend the tale in the ways most suitable to that purpose.

Fanboys have no right to complain that something as fluid as myth should conform to their preconcieved standards, although they are free to dislike it.

The (White) Lost Generation

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091115/ap_on_re_eu/child_migrants_apology_4

I was already familiar with Australia's disgraceful treatment of Aborigines by taking children from their families and placing them in the care of white familes in a ludicrous attempt to incorporate the obviously Aboriginal chilfren into a highly racist society. I was also aware of the British policy of colonization by deportation, although my collateral relatives actually reached Australia as chaplains rather than convicts. I was even aware that the last official blackface show in Britain was canceled in the Seventies, shortly after my birth. I had not known, however, that the United Kingdom had sent (effectively deporting) many white children, sometimes orphans or bastards (in the technical term, although not legally anymore in the UK) guilty of no crime to the British colonies, where they often ended in institutions or as cheap farm labor without any inconvenient family ties. No doubt this infusion of unfortunates allowed the Australian government to stave off for a time the specter of Asian immigration, since they were white, whatever their other sins might be. Every time I read about these sorts of cold calculation regarding human stock, such as Australian adoption policies, American eugenics, African slavery, or Asian denial of the existance of outcast castes, I wonder how many more I might not have discovered.

A Word on the Street

I'm sure many of my readers are aware that this year marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. As a child born in the late '70s, I was weaned on the first decade of "classic" street, before Elmo came along and "RUINED IT FOREVER!", as the idiots on the internet would say. I'm also a big Jim Henson fan (a Muppethead? I'm sure there is a term.), including some of his more obscure stuff.

In honor of the 40th anniversary, I decided to suppress my Elmo allergy and actually watch a current episode. The results surprised me. Although (rather predictably) I was not fond of the current remix of the opening theme, at least it's still "Sunny Days". I doubt the current songwriters can top Joe Raposo's classic compositions. The fifteen minute segment, a feature unknown in my youth, featured Elmo, the little pink fairy, and Big Bird arguing who would play the roles in the story which Gordon (the core human cast sure changes slowly!) read to them. I have to agree with the statements of some of cast members that a solid fifteen minute segment allows a slightly more complex and memorable storyline - I certainly couldn't identify any of the narratives from my childhood, although I remember many of the skits.

It became that the theme of the episode was the Wild West/Cowboys. The Bert and Ernie skit was animated, which seemed peculiar until I reflected that the episodes I had watched contained many animated segments, just not ones which featured Muppets. I always thought Bert deserved a better rep - but I like watching pigeons too, even if I don't collect paperclips. The presentation of the letter of the day (T, which had gotten dirty and been thrown in the wash) was mildly amusing, but the song and dance number celebrating the letter T was in the vein of classic Street. The presentation of the number of the day (a chorus line of Ones!) had me chuckling. Since I had only watched Sesame Street on television as an adult, I had not realized how many jokes the show contained to keep the parents or nanny amused (e.g., a foal named Wilbur). My favorite was the announcement for the upcoming "Desperate Horseflies" on the Horse Channel. I wonder if it takes place on a horse named Bree! Although I do wonder what happened to Forgetful Jones. Did his performer pass on and Grover inherit his horse? (Ah. It's not Buster - it's Fred the Wonder Horse).

One of the changes my generation most vehemently protested (other than Elmo himself) was the creation "Elmo's World", particularly because the use of crayon creates a set which appears not just simple, but crude. I found this segment a bit blah, but maybe that's because I have no emotional investment in Elmo as I do in the classic Muppet cast.

Sadly, there was no Oscar in this episode.

...In Excelsis Deo!

On Monday night, the Commonwealth Club speaker was Tim Brown, from IDEO (an innovation-minded company, rather than a terrorist organization from a Saturday morning cartoon). Brown was advocating "design thinking", although his interlocutor seemed skeptical and was hardballing the interview. I found that attitude a refreshing change from the much softer Commonwealth Club interview at the Fairmont of the authors of Superfreakonomics, at which I felt the interviewer could have coaxed the authors to talk about matters above and beyond that which could be found already in their book.

It seemed to me that Brown presented a convincing case of his own belief in his idea, but was not going to seduce the entire audience, but just the majority. The problem was not so much the validity of the idea and the associated strategems, as the zeal with which he pitched it, and possibly a detour into overhype, the boom of the idea economy. This reminded me of the way that new academic paradigms, even if they are applied initially to a subset of the discipline, become the new, best way to analyze anything within the discipline and a rebuttal to the intellectual status quo. Sometimes the status quo is so firmly planted that it becomes necessary to use excessive force to dislodge it; but such vehemence can mask the mediocrity of an apparently brilliant idea. "Design thinking" seems to be a valid and effective methodology, but perhaps not as earth-shattering as its most zealous proponents would claim.

Recent Reading: Music: A Very Short Introduction

One of the benefits of using public transport intensely is the opportunity to read copiously. I do not own an iPod or similar device, and therefore cannot descend into that form of solipsism while navigating the Bay. I bought Music: A Very Short Introduction, by Nicholas Cook, in Berkeley on Saturday at University Press Books after much debate between it and its fellow books in the same series. All of them possessed the advantage of convenient portability (which is one of the flaws of newspapers I have never understood). I decided that I would read up later on Kantian philosophy and Freudian psychoanalysis.

Cook's writing is clear and concise, but I doubt anyone who has never learned or forgotten how to read for information could quickly absorb much of it. The Introduction was more oriented towards an understanding the underlying philosophies of musical practice and language rather than musical history, which has its own formidable challenges. Cook seems to be trying to educate the reader how to think about music without allowing the very same reader to fall squarely and finally into orthodox thinking about music. This is a difficult task, and Cook succeeds at the price of some cognitive dissonance. Music: A Very Short Introduction is a dense, thought-provoking libellum, and well worth the time of the intellectual who is not a music major.

I Am Curious (Green)

The intriguing premise of Loren Rhoads' now-defunct annual magazine Morbid Curiosity and , more specifically, my attendance at the Friday reading of the magazine story collection Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues at the Castro Books, Inc. inspired to write up this incident, since it would have been both suitable and has never been told in a well-composed style.

I had taken a course at Carleton called Introduction to Islam with Professor Khalid, on the theory that I should know more about the Abrahamic faiths I was likely to encounter during my earthly sojourn: since I already belonged to one, I decided that I would take both Introduction to Judaism and Introduction to Islam. I greatly enjoyed Khalid's course, and still have the textbooks on a top shelf for reference. I am afraid that certain people in this post-9/11 environment do not appreciate my attempts to refine their distinctions between Muslim groups, clothing, and principles. I don't do it as a bleeding liberal, either, but as an academic who requires some degree of accuracy - I am not knowledgeable enough to make the finest distinctions of Islamic doctrine.

Khalid's course had created in me a thirst for knowledge about Islam. I must stress, again, that my interest in non-Christian religions arises not from a desire to convert, but rather a determination to acquire accurate and relatively unbiased information about each faith tradition. So I signed up for a e-mail list about Islam - this was in the late nineties, so I do mean e-mail list, nothing more. It had no profile section, and certainly no place for identifying pictures (although that last feature would have caused some problems for certain Muslims).

After a short time on the list, I received some spam from the Nation of Islam. I had not (yet) visited the University of Chicago and therefore been near the Nation of Islam headquarters, but I had seen Malcolm X (where I shouldn't have bought a large soda because of the long run time) and I had gone to high school with a Muslim girl.

I was a bit baffled and bemused by the spam. I find that there are two kinds of spam: that which is spam in the truest sense, and that which rises above spam by virtue of the recipient's expectation of it. I was not surprised that a list dedicated to Islam would receive such spam, and I was amused at the (necessary) assumption that the members of the list were African-American. Here I feel I must remind those much younger than I that effective google-stalking did not exist at this point and Friendster happened post-millenium (I should have taken up the jobbing erotic maid's offer to get in on that trend). I did google my name, however, and discovered that the only people who shared my name and appeared in the news were African-American petty criminals; this onomastic statistic (which is by no means a commentary on race and law) suggested to me that it was not unreasonable to assume someone with my name who was interested in Islam had West African ancestry. It also seemed to me that if I had been African-American and they had asked my race, I would have been more offended. I briefly considered signing on their list, but quickly came to my senses and refrained. As a last note, I have to say that even an organization that boasts Louis Farrakhan scares me less than the "Church" of Happyology, whose test I once took from a public computer where I did not have to sign in.

Michael and Me: A Personal Story

On Saturday night, I went with Georgina to the prophetically named Michael Jackson vehicle This Is It. I had forgotten how charismatic Jackson was on-screen, and I especially appreciated the exposure which the footage gave to all the people who work so hard on set and (at best) are reduced to a name in the list, which nobody except their grandmother notices. Several of the interviewees displayed a peculiar, yet not unexpected, mix of adulation and professionalism.

My first exposure to the Gloved One was in the early eighties, before his disgrace. This period saw the birth of MTV, but my parents were and are conservative in their judgments of how much television a child should watch, so the first really big impression of Jackson I received occurred during my first visit to Disneyland. At that time, Jackson had made a short music video (new and exciting technology at the time) called Captain Eo, in which he played a space captain contesting against an evil, loveless alien queen. It would be prudent, perhaps, to point out that Jackson was hardly the only pop star of the day who could portray an androgynous space captain convincingly. Captain Eo, naturally, vanquishes the queen through the power of music/love - Jackson appears to have conflated the two. This video disappeared from Disneyland, although I couldn't tell you whether this occurred before or after charges were levied against Jackson. If it was after the charges, the cause for removal is clear; the most mercantile land on Earth, however, has a habit of periodically demolishing and replacing its attractions.

After the infamous Neverland charges, I began to feel uncomfortable saying anything about Michael Jackson. Although my interest in his music had started at the height of his solo fame and my youthful impressionability, I was concerned, as a youth leader, and particularly as a Boy Scout leader, I would be misinterpreted and ostracized (although the current meaning of that word lacks the implication of temporary exile). One of the factors which has always bothered me about any charges involving misconduct against youth is the presumption not of "innocent, until proven guilty", but rather "guilty, even if proven innocent". I'd rather save that argument for later. I've wondered why the family accepted an out-of-court settlement, but I shall be discreet and avoid possible libel charges. This blog, after, is merely a personal one.

I was surprised as much as anyone by Jackson's marriages and procreation. This surprise does not derive from an assumption of homosexuality, but rather from an assumption that Jackson filled his own niche of sexuality. Years of reading Savage Love have educated me to the existence of many "perversions", from those common to much of the human race down to exceedingly rare fetishes.

They say the best promotional tool for an artist is dying, and in this case it's also freed me from one of my many insecurities that prevented me from enjoying the soundtrack of my youth.

Kauai Tales

Most people, when they travel to exotic lands, collect knick-knacks such as clothing items or useless objects that soon are retired to a drawer and completely forgotten. I prefer to buy language-themed items, which is how I have come to own many Teach Yourself Language X books and dictionaries over the years. This time, when I went to Kauai with my family, I was looking around an antiques and Hawaiiana store in a Hanalei and discovered a book of Kauai legends and folktales. I already owned a Hawaiian dictionary (which I had forgotten, oh so foolishly, to bring with me to Kauai) and a book on the better-known Hawaiian legends, such as Maui and Pele, so I was excited to obtain a book with more provincial legends.


What particularly appealed to me about Kauai Tales was the glossary in the back that explained the meaning of the names in the stories. It pleased me not only as a practitioner of the "secret vice", but also as a student of myth and legend. The names in such stories, unless they are drawn from a historical person, are not chosen randomly; knowing the meaning of the name, therefore, illuminates the point of the story and may yield cultural information otherwise hidden. Many of the stories in Kauai Tales are aetiological, spanning form the time of night before the colonization of the Hawaiian islands to semi-historical periods. The author-collector is very careful to point out that this is a collection of stories from story-tellers, rather than genealogist-historians, and is intended to entertain first and be useful or historically accurate secondarily.

I devoured the tales in the first book so quickly that I returned to the shop to purchase the other two collections. The shop was still there, since it wasn't magical, and a book that appeared in the back of an antiques shop did not seem the sort of literature which would be easy or possible to find on a return voyage (I'm still kicking myself for not picking up the Adam Link collection in Many Waters bookstore in Northfield).

The second volume, Polihale, unfortunately lacked the comprehensive language index of the first volume, but it contained much more material. Now that I have returned home, I have access to my Hawaiian reference material. Much of Polihale appears to be derived from an Kauai oral epic involving several characters in a war between the chief of Kona (yes, the coffee place) and the chief of Wailua, near the sacred birthing stone of the chiefly class. It reminded of the Iliad and Odyssey, in that the cycle contained an overarching war narrative, personal narratives (from both sides), aetiologies, and stories about the aftermath of the war (involving a were-octopus).

I have not read the third yet, but I am looking forward to it.

The Marvelous Mouse

Even though I am not the biggest fan of the Mouse (that would be a certain "North Dakota" among my friends), I do not think that the purchase of Marvel by Disney is not a bad thing. The Disney brand has tilted too far towards the shores of princess-infested kingdoms, and they are aware of this, since they made an entire film (Enchanted) gently mocking their success in this genre. I remember watching Classic Disney on Sunday nights when I was growing up, and the films of those eras provided plenty of materials for boys as well as girls. I remember a church lock-in at Saint Mary's where the girls prevailed upon me to watch Beauty and the Beast, which I did enjoy. The problem is not so much the quality of the material for girls as the dearth of material for boys.

The American comic industry, in contrast to Disney, has a a terrible record in attracting female readers. Manga producers, however, have no difficulty attracting female readers. What I suspect will happen is this: Disney will promote the kid-friendly and continuity-free lines of Marvel and draw in the boy viewers whom they lost after the duck-heavy years of my childhood, and Marvel will produce more comics oriented toward romance (which disappeared from their line because the action comics merged with the romance line), although it's hard to say whom they could use as leads outside of Mary Jane Watson and Kitty Pryde.

Baby Merchants

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/257390/the_case_against_adoption_research_pg2_pg2.html?cat=17

I have been pondering this last few day the matter of adoption, ever since I read the above site which makes a case against adoption. I cannot take a stand against any and all adoption, because I do not believe that abortions should be performed except if the life and health of the mother is at risk. Please note that I understand that situation as the equivalent of triage at an accident - it would be best if you could save both victims, but sometimes it is necessary to choose. The post, however, is more about adoptions than my position on abortion.

I do not deny that there is coercion and the occasional shady dealing (such as this baby merchant from Cop Rock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3AaY1BG8k

Adoption is a mechanism for placing children with a loving family, and it is certainly better than foster care or state care (I regret that we lost that foster kid from the Troop, even if his foster mother's taste in "candy" was deplorable). I have no doubt that my adopted cousin has fared better with my uncle and aunt than she would have with her birth mother. If there is a shortage a white babies to adopt, there is no shortage of babies overall. Perhaps the couples should consider interracial adoption, as my relatives did (long before Madonna), or maybe a slightly older child. After all, biologically produced children so far come with unexpected characteristics.

The biological mothers of the children have a variety of reasons for preferring adoption, ranging from the compassionate to the somewhat mercenary. On the other hand, the birth mother may genuinely believe that this is a way to give her child a better life. The best situation would be to have an extensive local network of family and friends who could help the mother raise the child, but the American lust for isolating individualism has destroyed that possibility for many citizens.

Electrifying Baptism

Here's the full story about my cell phone. On Friday, I was in my dining room, reading (aloud, per my project/new blog) my bilingual Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine. I'd gone into the kitchen and fetched a glass of water, for reading aloud is thirsty work. My cell was also on the table. I knocked over the glass, and the water flowed over my phone, the newspaper which Andrew had left on the table, and part of my Novum Testamentum. The water on the table and on the paper was easy enough to handle; the Novum Testamentum was more difficult, but I'm sure my friends and family can believe that this is not the first time I've spilled something on a book - at least it was just water. The cell phone, however, although I have dropped it multiple times, had avoid contact with liquid (again, at least it was drinking water, not toilet water), so I did what I could to take care of it. Fortunately, I had very few pictures on it, and most of the phone numbers were of family, friends, or very frequent business contacts.

One of the things I noticed on Saturday was how dependent people have become on their cell phones. I didn't know where my watch was, so the only clock I had was part of my camera. I use the bus to get around San Francisco, so I am accustomed to having something to read on my person - in this case, a pocketbook of Shakespeare's Sonnets (I didn't realize one sonnet was a complaint against lousy English weather).
Even I, however, have been using my cell phone as a calendar, alarm clock, and address book without backup. Today I pulled out my Utah Navajo Partnership 2009 Calendar from St Aidan's, Boulder, and started to reconstruct my schedule. Some have suggested additional electronic backup, but what if that malfunctions? It seems to me that pen and paper remain the most reliable way of preserving critical informantion from an electric Asphodel Fields.

... And Little Children Shall Lead Him

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090914/od_nm/us_sheep_odd

I was annoyed by the hypocrisy of the London parents who objected to the slaughter of Marcus the lamb, which the children who raised him in a project designed to teach them about the life cycle of livestock approved, since the point of domestic sheep is to serve as a resource to the human race. Although I do not have quite the conspiratorial conclusion of Lindy McDowell (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/lindy-mcdowell/lindy-mcdowell-why-its-good--children-see-a-lamb-led--to-slaughter-14493965.html) involving the meat industry, since I apportion the blame more to the "delicate little angels" mentality of the parents, I do agree that Marcus had a good life for a stock animals, compared to creatures such as industrial chickens. At least these kids will not suffer from the illusion that meat is naturally pre-cut and wrapped when they see it in the supermarket.

From Divinity to Demonization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_sc/us_sci_gender_confusion

So, in the link at the top of this blog entry, Caster Semenya, a South African athlete, was accused of not being female, and tested for XY genes. She also showed no signs of ovaries, and therefore doesn't have periods. She was raised, however, as a girl by her family. So she is a hermaphrodite, named after Hermaphroditus.

In mythology, Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, whom the Naiad Salmacis desired so greatly that she prayed she might become one with him. Although this wish was granted, Hermaphroditus cursed the pool of Salmacis so that any who bathed in it would suffer the same condition. So in this case, it is a curse. A different tradition, however, found in Plato, propose that the human race originally consisted of hermaphrodites and that the desire to be one flesh once more motivated human courtship. According to this line of thought, hermaphrodites reflect the primordial union of man and woman and therefore partake more fully of the Good.

The term "hermaphrodite" has been replaced by newer, "more sensitive", and certainly more transient ones such as "intersex", whose exterior appears as a very mannish female. The only fiction I know of which features intersexuality,Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides, does a little to remove the perception of monstrosity, but nonetheless credits the character's condition to the sins of the fathers.

She must be suffering severe psychological trauma from this revelation, and the cruelest blow is this: if she had not competed and won, the testing never would have occurred, and she could have lived her life as a very butch female. Now she's banned from her sport and known to the world as a genetic freak. The reason given for such tests (beyond the obvious physical check) is that male testosterone gives a competitor an advantage, but with the mix of doping, legitimate enhancements, rigorous training, and natural ability in track & field, the successful competitor have already removed themselves from ordinary human beings. I doubt she would be allowed to compete in the men's competition without complaint, yet she is barred from the women's competition; this is a clear case of black-and-white thinking failing to reflect reality. Outside of the world of sports, gender is assigned usually on external features, not genetic tests, and it seems grossly unfair to ruin someone's life in this manner.

TV Review: Little Mosque on the Prairie

Although the current state at the cabin at Lake Tahoe is a dearth of channels, my TV-watching habits for series (as well as webcomic-reading) can be described as short-term addiction. This tendency also appears when I read books in a series. I watch a lot of episodes at once, and then lose interest; if it is sufficiently compelling, I may return. So it has been with the CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie. I watched Season 1 a while ago, and then lost interest, but I have been watching many episodes recently, and now have reached another lull.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, I could just post the Wikipedia link. That, however, would be lazy. The series' viewpoint character is a Toronto lawyer who decides to become an imam (more like a rabbi than a priest) for the Muslim community of the small western Canadian town of Mercy. Presumably the creator of the series used this (standard literary) structure in order that she could have an outsider thrust into the midst of key religious disputes. One must admit it makes more sens than the ordinary child who becomes the key to the salvation of the universe. The Muslim and non-Muslim characters span the entire political range, although it is true that the show privileges the Muslim characters. I can forgive this imbalance, since the other movie and TV roles for Muslim characters and actors of Middle Eastern descent are very frequently terrorists.

It's a very Canadian show, eschewing the Manichaean dichotomy of culture warriors and favoring the portrayal of individuals with personal motivations for faith or lack thereof. Each week there is a crisis that pits at least one character's Islamic beliefs or cultural tendencies from the Islamic part of the world against "western" traditions. The first season is especially interesting in that regard, since specific concepts needed to be introduced; the third season is closer to a soap opera, if soap operas were rigidly episodic and chaste to the point of no kissing. The westernization of the Muslim characters has angered many Muslim watchers, but I doubt the show would be able to spread its message of goodwill and ecumenical harmony if it showed the most rigid segments of the Muslim population.

I'm certainly not a follower of the Prophet, and perhaps I think this way because my formative political experience was the fall of the Berlin Wall rather than 9/11 or the Cold War, but this series does a good job of introducing Islam in a setting which will not frighten westerners.

Speed Spectator Movie Review: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I finally watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, although it had been one of the movies I rescued from the “caretaker’s cottage”. I assume it belonged to my brother or his wife when they lived there. First of all, I must admit that I did not grow up watching westerns other than some episodes of Paladin which the Reno stations played early in the morning. I also visited the Bonanza Ranch before it went bankrupt and became another real estate development. My taste in fiction of the American West runs more towards Laura Ingalls Wilder and Brett Harte than John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

The plot and pacing of Valance is excellent and well thought-out, although probably insufferably tedious to Generation ADHD. The title of the film is chosen carefully to provoke interest, accurately reflect the hero antagonist of the film, and conceal the twist ending. The dénouement of the movie shows a satisfying subversion of the ‘sudden ability syndrome‘, a curious plot-related disease in which the hero suddenly develops a specific and necessary ability to save the day. Contemporary movies intended for children are the frequent victims of this, and fuel the narcissism of the current generation - but that’s a rant for another day.

Valance observes the majority of the Western clichés, including the drunken Mexican, the drunken sheriff (in this case, the same person as the former), the stubborn newsman, the ‘happy Negro’, the funny-talking immigrant, and the color-coded hats, but the mere naming of the villain as Liberty Valance suggests a certain degree of self-aware subversion. The character of Liberty Valance does not seem to be sufficiently clever to understand irony, and the depth of Donovan’s (Wayne's) character is limited to a tedious repetition of ‘pilgrim’ as a synonym for ‘fellow’ and a dogged insistence on the necessity and utility of firearms. It may be a generational difference, but I do not understand the appeal of John Wayne and cannot perceive his charisma.

This was an interesting movie to watch, but it was a bit like a mediocre Agatha Christie: the plot is satisfying, but the actors are chess pieces rather than living players.

Recent Reading: The Lightning Thief

I read The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan partly because I knew a movie of the book was being made and I wanted to check how solid the mythology was. I like Harry Potter, but the distortions of Latin get on my nerves. Rowling clearly knows enough Latin to get it almost right. Imagine my joy, then, when I discovered an exclamation in Homeric Greek in The Lightning Thief! The first book of the Percy Jackson series reminded me a bit of John Christopher's initial offering in the The White Mountains trilogy due to a careful balance of a full story within a projected series.

The Latin and Greek in the book is grammatical and colloquial. The book follows the standard literary convention that only obscenities remain untranslated, although I doubt the intended audience would realize quite how offensive the phrase 'eis korakas' truly is in Ancient Greek. Riordan extends his untranslated expletives beyond the vocative (the lazy man's foreign language) and even includes the plural imperative of a deponent verb. For those of you who lack the ars grammatica, that means he used a verb form which is passive in form, but active in meaning; that's a level of detail which many grade school Latin students would miss.

The reason for the movement of the world of Greek mythology to the United States is well presented, even if it does show the usual bias towards New York. Riordan has solved creatively the problem of a limited (and previously killed) roster of Classical monsters. The monsters themselves are true to the traditional mythology, and dwell in the appropriately iconic cities and regions. The choice of the entrance to the Underworld is a little surprising, although there is a certain logic to it.

The trio of heroes (an apt term for this subcreated world) fill the Harry Potter mode of main character, best friend, and opposite gender friend/potential love interest, but the character interaction placed between the desperate attempts to avoid assassination (this is a children's fantasy, after all) rings true and explores a lesser known dynamic between two gods, or rather their children. The Lightning Thief compromises as little as possible the occasionally sordid interactions between the Olympian gods - this is a relief from the bowdlerization of many other tales.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I can endorse it as a Classics major and occasional fantasy fan.

Prête à Portmanteau

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090812/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_burquini_banned

So this 'Carole', a convert to Islam, wanted to go for a swim, but also wanted to remain modest. So she bought a burquini, a burqa-bikini portmanteau, and tried to go swimming. But French laws about wearing 'possible street clothes' while swimming prohibited her.

This seems to me typical French ideological overreaction, combined with the usual legislative blindness and resistance to future complications. Any gym or pool I have ever entered has hygienic requirements, usually mandating that one bring a change of clothes and shower both before and after using the pool. The problem here could easily be solved by Carole and other similarly inclined women changing from their non-revealing street clothes to their non-revealing burquini, which presumably has a design intended for la plage et la piscine (although, if I were a woman, I'd hesitate to wear it in a known undertow area). If you've seen photos of 19th century bathing suits, the burquini design doesn't seem at all outrageous, and has an absence of hideous carny stripes to recommend it. After all, the bad on nude swimmers is at its heart a matter of modesty rather than hygiene – swimming trunks or a bikini aren't going to keep a filthy person from polluting the pool, as various “accidents” in our client associations' pools have demonstrated this summer.

Bible Reading: Suffocating Debt

<sup>In Matthew 18:23-34, Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving debtor. The servile debtor, who owes the equivalent of millions of dollars, appeals to his master to commute the sentence of slavery, and the king yields. When the debtor is departing from the manor, he encounters a fellow servant who owes him the equivalent of twenty bucks. This man pleads in the same way as the debtor had done, but the debtor is unforgiving, chokes him, and throws the other man in prison. When the other servants witness this, they report the debtor's actions to the master, who orders the debtor to be handed over to the torturers until he repays his debt in full. As usual, the parable refers the divine consequences of human interactions. Then, Jesus caps his parable by saying, "My heavenly father will do this to you, if each one of you does not have mercy on your brother from your hearts." (Personal translation, from the Vulgate).



This parable could be applied to certain recent events, and almost certainly has, but that's not my interest here. When I was in Confirmation Class (which I took very seriously, unlike some of my fellow students), we had to memorize, understand, and paraphrase the Our Father, Nicene Creed, and various instruments of faith of the Episcopal Church to the best of our ability. In the process of studying the Our Father, I had an insight which was deep for my early teenage psyche: "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive the trespasses of others". This segment of the Our Father was not a statement of desire for the Heavenly Father, nor a straightforward request for sustenance, be it material or spiritual; rather, it required explicit action on the part of individuals. It was the first time I understood my individual role as a member of the body of Christ. I also think that this act of human forgiveness, and the difficulty which many people experience in doing it, drives home what an incredible deal Christians have received.



It's worth noting that the language of the Our Father does not deny the seriousness of the trespasses; "forgiveness" in secular parlance has come to mean, in certain times and places, a diminution of the gravity of the offense, or even pretending the offense never occurred. If that is the way someone understands "forgiveness", it is small wonder they are loathe to forgive! Christians who are unable to forgive the peccadilloes of their fellow men, while accepting divine forgiveness for themselves, are worse than Pharisees, although the attitude is similar; at least the Pharisees placed the same (absolute) price on their sins as the same sins of the Judaean peasants. The other reason, I suspect, that this phrase receives such prominence, is that the Christian who cannot forgive others out of love also cannot understand the greater love which prompts God to forgive him.

That's my testimony and understanding. Feel free to elucidate, critique, dispute, as long as it's civil.</sup>

Movie Review: The City of Ember

On Thursday night, I watched The City of Ember, based on the book of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau. I have long held a love of post-apocalyptic movies which do not involve leatherdaddies and large amounts of hairspray, ever since I read John Christopher's The White Mountains and The Sword of the Spirit trilogies, or perhaps it was early exposure to Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. I will confess, I have not read the book, which is contrary to my usual movie-watching policy.

At first, I wasn't sure the DVD was working properly, because this is the only movie I've seen with so many scenes in the pitch black that don't involve people dying horribly. The architectural geography of the actual city of Ember triggered some visual memories in me, which I could not identify until I checked the next day and realized the author was French; I had been reminded of the more nightmarish architecture of The City of Lost Children. The leads of the film were well-cast, although the dim lighting (for once justified by plot relevance) made reading their faces difficult at times. Some other reviews have faulted the film for a lack of action; while the sacrifice of certain scenes from the book appear to have reduced the action quotient, I was pleased to watch a film where the intelligence and mystery-solving sections of the book were not sacrificed for action scenes. Enough confrontations occur in the dark or dim already!

The mole and the giant mutant beetle were absurd (although moles are indeed creepy, if you look closely at them), and how everybody in these underground cities avoids rickets baffles me. I assume dwarves in fantasy books have a racial immunity. The Assignment Day, although it is common for such survivalist dystopias, seems slightly ridiculous in its system of random assignments. Lois Lowry's The Giver, which I re-read today (yes, the whole thing) in order to have some points of comparison, contains speeches that indicate careful thought on the matter of individual assignments; perhaps the book The City of Ember contains such scenes which were cut from the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but the location of Ember is the draw, so perhaps it's not so bad that there will be no movie sequels.

Birthday Float

This year, my birthday fell on a Wednesday. For most people, this would be an inauspicious time, but I had submitted payroll the day before, and had taken care of the imminent bills, so it seemed a good time to enjoy myself. The weather was less than optimal, despite previously glorious days, so I suspect my dear cousin Zachary or his lovely girlfriend brought the chilly weather with them. My original plan was a boat trip on the lake, since Katie had never visited Lake Tahoe, but that plan hit several logistical logs, so I chose to float down the Truckee River instead. I led my party to the wrong side of the river, where once long ago there was a launching point, so we had to return to the northern bank. The river seemed crowded, although it must be even more so on holidays such as the 4th. The boats on the river contained the expected mix of families and drunken yahoos. I had forgotten how far downstream the River Ranch was, if your craft is drifting glacially. The river was higher than I had anticipated, so many of the shallow parts, which in past years had provided me with formidable obstacles, were drowned. The point of such a trip is relaxation, so relatively little occurred that is worth noting. As we were emerging from the downstream side of one of the wooden bridges that spans the Truckee, two juvenile delinquents dumped a bucket of slightly rancid water on our items stored in the stern of the boat, as well as Zachary. Zachary grabbed the nearest projectiles at hand and hurled them at the brats; he hit both of them, but no adults were nearby, so it's doubtful they learned a lesson.

After we had finished our float, we went to the Blue Agave for a late lunch and a margarita pitcher.

The Dog That Came In From The Road

I shall not speak of work today, not because of privacy issues, but because little of interest occurred in the workplace. When Dad and I had stopped at the Dollar Hill 7-11, he for certain unmentionables, I for a coffee that I might proceed straightway to the tasks at hand (namely payroll) once I had arrived at the office, a Husky, big, shaggy, and silent, wandered into the store and casually inspected his surroundings and lay down. We marvelled at this, but the clerk seemed non-chalant. It turned out that the dog was more the store dog than the companion of any particular employee. Such behavior seems to be in the nature of Huskies, who prefer to roam at will and are large enough to spare their owners worry over bear encounters. I heard a tale recently, in which a female Husky left her house each morning, walked north to meet up with her "boyfriends", went south again past her house, and returned when evening was nigh. I suppose each breed has its own predilections.

Saturday Morning Hike

On Saturday morning I went on a hike in Meeks Bay with my brother and Olive, his 7-month-old half-lab, half-heeler. Dad and I had tried to reach the first stream of the trail earlier this summer before his feet gave out, and it's a trail we know well from taking the late springer spaniel along it - he, of course, found the destination incredibly exciting. Olive, however, had not yet grasped the idea of an outdoor activity which did not involve throwing anything, so she bounced along the trail, stopping only to stare at us with genial confusion - this behavior explains, if not excuses, the lack of pictures with this post. When strangers were near, she displayed the peculiar attitude of youngsters, in which bravery extends to a point just before the moment contact. When we reached the stream, which was low from summer evaporation, Olive was more interested in splashing than drinking.

The Meeks Bay trail lies between a waterlogged meadow on the left and a series of stony ridges on the right, leading up to the aptly named Desolation Wilderness. The meadow is a favorite spot for bears seeking berries. On either side of the trail grew clusters of wildflowers, purple and white and blue and yellow, but the soil is not fertile, since it is primarily composed of granite sand, and the clusters were farly widely spaced. Most of the water which finds its way into the valley comes from a cluster of lakes high above, descending via the stream which was our destination.

Recent Reading: Finding Oz

When I was a child, I read with avidity the Oz books; when I was in college, I read some excellent fiction on the meaning of the Oz books (inevitably, one of them imposed a heavy nad anachronistic homosexual content) and even found some of the non-Oz materials penned by L. Frank Baum (the less said about Alan Moore's Lost Girls, the better) but until recently I had never read a biography of Baum which explored the possible sources from his personal life which may have contributed to the elements in the Wizard of Oz. Schwartz approaches Baum's life as a story itself - an appropriate choice given the way Baum himself understood life - but also elucidates Baum's connections to radical feminism, Theosophism, oil monopolies, snake oil salesmanship, manifest destiny and Native American genocide. Some of these themes appear only in the book, whereas other reminders of Baum's life appear only in the movie. And for the record, I have never found the "all a dream" ending of the movie satisfying. After I had finished the book, I understood the nineteenth-century context and the personal drive of the author of the great American fairytale.

Berchakap di-kelantan

(I apologize for any errors - feel free to correct me)
Hari satu saya berjalan kapal terbang ka-Kentucky di-negeri USA tempat saya berchakap di-sini bahasa Latin chuma sahaja dengan banyak pengajar dari kampong2. Rupa-nya hari di-sini benar panas. Dudok saya sekalian di-rumah tempat dudok musim sekolah orang murid. Orang perempuan kelantan berchakap benar chantek!

Royaneh 2009

I went up to Royaneh on Wednesday of the first week (Troop 14 spends two weeks at camp). The heat and dust were still familiar. The camp programme now included many new badges, most of which do not have the activity level of traditional “camp” badges - Entrepeneurship, Salesmanship, and Theater were among these. Fourteeners who remember about candy and soda probably realize that some boys already understand Entrepeneurship quite well! The new Trading Post is spacious and has a deck which is eminently suitable for loitering.

On Thursday, the night was bitterly cold, which was either unfortunate or character-building, depending on whether you were a Scout in the Wilderness Survival class or a proponent of the tough-it-out school. It was also skit night, and the troop used one of the skits from Wednesday‘s campfire. Its dark humor worked slightly better in the more intimate setting of Pioneers (the site where the troop stays while at camp) than in the Ralph W Benson Amphitheater.


On Friday, there were the usual panics about unfinished badges, exacerbated by sloth and estival distraction. Some were agape at the notion that Bruce and I required some level of evidence before signing notes. The most notable thing, however, occurred at the Friday (camp-wide) campfire. When the camp staff began to wheel Jumbo on stage, the big screen on which the photos of the week’s activities are projected, they dropped it, and then in the process of fixing it, they dropped poor Jumbo again. the slide show occurred, but I credit its barely perceptible haste to the time lost through Jumbo’s failure to fly.


The breakfast of the first Saturday is always slightly odd, since the camp staff is bidding adieu to the Scouts, even though our troop does not leave. I was rather surprised that our camp task was not to clean Big Egypt, since that’s a favorite task to assign to Troop 14. Big Egypt is the shower house/bathroom between the dining hall and Pioneers, which earned its moniker because the old Big Egypt before its reconstruction once had a trough called the Little Nile - I shall be silent on the composition of that river. The troop split into rough age cohorts: the older Scouts went to the JLT (Junior Leadership Training), while the younger Scouts descended to the parade field to practice Colors. After a game of football to shed some excess energy, the younger group marched up to Scanlon Ridge, where they did some orienteering and the folly of claiming knowledge was shown quite dramatically. A group of Scouts later went down to Roman Plunge (aka the old Canoe Base) for an old-fashioned swim. I am told that there was a Siren from the camp staff down there. Then came the inevitable game of Capture the Flag. The campfire started late, so both I and another were cut from the program, and the Sherlock Holmes never even entered into consideration - it would be nice to find something equally engaging, but slightly shorter.


On Sunday, the Scouts signed up for merit badges and went on cairn hikes. The opening camp campfire (which I had not seen the previous Sunday) had undergone improvements and revisions.


On Monday, the day was unexceptional, and the troop campfire started late, as usual for this session, but the performances therein were superb. The quality of the skits was erratic, but the musical offerings by patrol members were excellent. I’m not sure the contents of House of the Rising Sun are appropriate for a Scout campfire, but the execution was nearly perfect.
I left on Tuesday.

An Attempt At Malay Composition

Saya dudok di-rumah yang besar di-tepi mata ayer yang besar lagi tawar(1) nama-nya Tahoe. Dia di-antara gunong Sierra Nevada. Rumah di-atas kebun senang (2) tempat saya lari ka-sana ka-mana masa saya budak. Dahulu lari, sekarang ta’ senang. Kerja di-negeri nama-nya Tahoe City. Sa-malam keluar dengan bapa ka-pekan ka-kedai tempat beli makan minum (3) beli buah pisang roti sa-keping sa-peti susu. Sudah pulang rumah, simpan.
(1) “lake”- “big freshwater spring” is the closest I could do
(2) “vacation resort”
(3) “grocery store” – ‘pasar’ seemed too broad.

Sic Semper Tyrannis (No, I Don’t Know How To Say It In Korean)

I have been following with the interest the events of the tense succession crisis in North Korea. Kim Jong Il, “the Dear Leader”, has appointed his younger son, Kim Jong Un, as “the Brilliant Comrade”, passing over the elder son, whose name I do not recall seeing. I do know, however, that there is speculation that the elder son was passed over for the dubious honor of leadership of North Korea because he attempted to enter Japanese Disneyland with a fake passport. Such disgraceful behavior is reminiscent of the Athenian suitor for the daughter of the tyrant in Corinth, who drunkenly danced away his chance at her hand and then brazenly claimed he had no regrets. Kim Jong Un’s title as “Comrade”, rather than “Leader”, does not have a precedent in the previous transfer of power; in that case, the government announced the change without any previous suggestion of the ailing health or recent demise of “the Great Leader”. The elevation of “Comrade” to the meaning of “Crown Prince” (the final blow to a title founded in radical egalitarianism) suggests that the Dear Leader is still alive, but incapacitated. How much true power the Brilliant Comrade will wield if and when he becomes the Brilliant Leader is a vexing question, in light of the nuclear tests and the characteristics of the third generations of Kim tyrants. I should pause to explain that my Classical training has taught me to use “tyrant” as a technical political term (rather than a near generic term of political abuse), which indicates a “bad” monarchy, one which has no cultural or historical legitimacy in the country in which it establishes itself. In general, the Greek tyrannies began with an ambitious man who rallied his countrymen under the banner of improving their condition, who overthrew the current government, and who (if fortunate enough to avoid assassination) passed his rule onto his son. Most Greek tyrannies collapsed in the second generation; those which survived did so because they had transformed into pseudo-monarchies. These states remained pseudo-monarchies because they lacked the clear line of succession which (most) monarchies possessed. The third generation was the last for the tyrannical dynasties. Even the Syracusan tyranny, which approached most closely the ideal of monarchy, fell in the third generation, only to be re-established about a century later, and those latter tyrants claimed a descent from the former in imitation of monarchy.


The presence of two brothers in the rising generation is not reassuring. Even in monarchies which had a clear succession, there was often much tension between the Crown Prince and his younger brothers, such as the sons of William the Conqueror, or the Emperor Vespasian; in monarchies which lacked this tradition, such as the Ottoman Empire and the empire of the Mongol Horde, fratricide was a common occurance. A few occurances of happy balance have existed, such as the harmony between Emperor Charles V and his brother, but for the most part history and legend record conflicts such as that of Romulus and Remus, Caracalla and Geta, and the sons of Solomon, allegedly the “wisest” king of all history. Even if the brothers themselves do not seek to quarrel, the internal parties of the state (and they always exist) now have the opportunity to support their own candidate and undermine that of their rival, whereas a lone son can be a puppet in equal measure, but does not provide the same opportunity.


In this age, inimical to the establishment of new pseudo-monarchies and not exactly friendly to the existing established monarchies, I would not expect that the Kim tyranny will survive a third generation. How much the eventual collapse will damage the world, given North Korea’s posturing, remains to be seen.

Canoe Training 2009

On Saturday, June 7, the troop went on its annual Canoe Training outing. This was a single day outing, unlike previous years.. Originally, we had been scheduled to go on the Canoe Training this weekend, and the Whitewater Trip earlier, which everybody loves, but sufficient volume at Cash Creek is dependent on the release of water from Clear Lake, and that release is dependent on the irrigation schedule of the Valley; apparently the water flow of California is entirely artificial (Charlie Johnck, hydrologist, might be able to enlighten me). After a great deal of schedule changes, including the cancellation of the earlier date due to rain, we ended up back on the original date, but we could only get one day. I will say, however, that the ranger at Tam-O-Rancho is a lot more personable than the old ranger at Royaneh.


We had no staff, so The World’s Best Patrol Leader (I can’t use real names, obviously) took point and sent two Scouts up the (unconventional) trail to scout - unfortunately, at one of the young men had a rather impulsive character and neither returned in a timely fashion. The troop went down to the lake by the usual way and found the “scouts” already there. This lake is small and artificial, created by an permanent earthen dam. There were more weeds than usual, part of which we removed my by hand.


The dock was on the far side of the lake; its square components were tied together in a straight line, with the exception of the final one, whose placement on the side provided a larger platform on which to take the first step from the bank. Some of the older guys marched counter-clockwise along the banks of the lake in order to paddle the dock across. At first, the boys made headway, but it became clear that something was restraining the rather awkwardly shaped dock-boat. It was clear also that the crew of this “craft” was not composed of crew members. Eventually, the anchor was located, although half sank when a certain person detached it. The new placement of the dock almost blocked the shallow basin from the deeper part of the lake.


Once the set up had been completed, the Old Man administered the swim tests and deliberately if not maliciously mangled some names, while I climbed into the lookout post. Only one boy expressed reluctance, and fortunately he tried and won in the end; to spend the entire day on the shore while all the other boys were in the canoes would be extremely boring and frustrating!


Although I had to do paperwork for the Court of Honor (is it that hard to mark down who is present?), an enlightening experience in distinguishing Goofuses and Gallants and the inconvenience of senary percentages, the boys were busy on the lake. The halving (or greater) of the time for practicing strokes and steering diminished the final competence of the candidates for the merit badge. A significant winnowing factor, as usual, was the swamping and righting of a canoe. It is remarkably difficult to swamp your own canoe deliberately (probably a self-preservation trait), but once you achieve the intentional sabotage, the operation of righting the craft presents grave difficulties. There is no support form below, so the only power comes from sufficient upper body strength, which is an absolute division: either it is enough, or it is not. Many Fourteeners have failed in their first year of Canoe Training, only to succeed in the second.


Since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, there was a half-hour of free time on the water, during which it seemed that half the canoes were sunk (this doesn’t mean they went to the bottom of the lake, since they were still buoyant). The troop dads provided a feast of grilled hot dogs and chips, in addition to largely ignored fruit) before we changed and marched back to the cars.

Aphaeresis and (Co-)Efficients

As Mr. Hawkins and the lovely Misses Tew and Ung are aware, I have been attempting to learn some Malay. The initial chapters presented no serious difficulties beyond those which any language book for beginners contain, but two features of the language struck me once I had reached Chapter V. The first, and lesser, of these features is the occasional, and occasionally rather extreme, aphaeresis of words beginning with a schwa or h and a schwa when the previous word ends in a vowel. Elision is the disappearance of a vowel before a following word which begins with a vowel; aphaeresis is the opposite effect. The reduction of hendak to ‘nak and helai to lai after a final vowel is understandable, since the schwa is never the stressed syllable in a two-syllable Malay word, and I presume that the occasional example of (pseudo-)aphaeresis before a final consonant is the result of linguistic analogy. The alternate forms present a minor difficulty to the learners who has not digested the full vocabulary and its linguistic isotopes, but the very preface of my book warns that Malay is not a book language at heart.

If I may digress for a moment to engage in linguistic geekery, the production of ’nak rather than *’ndak from the aphaeresis of hendak should not surprise; the pre-nasalized voiced plosive nd seems to require in Malay an epenthetic schwa in order to be pronounced; thus the elimination of that schwa requires a reduction of the pre-nasalized voiced plosive to either a (voiced) nasal, n, or a voiced plosive, d. Languages, such as Welsh, which face this question, appear to favor the nasal.

The other feature of Malay which struck me was the use of classifiers, which the author of my little blue-and-yellow book chooses to call coefficients. I am familiar with the concept, since Chinese possesses ‘classifiers’ and (Ancient) Middle Egyptian uses a similar system. Chinese places a classifier, which limits the possible meanings of the following monosyllabic or disyllabic word, between the numeral and the head word. Thus, the words for ‘deer’ and ‘road’, which are homonyms, are distinguished in speech by their respective classifiers. Middle Egyptian uses classifiers in the opposite way; since hieroglyphic writing only provides the consonants and omits the semantic content of the vowels, the homonyms are a visual kind (I would greatly appreciate it if anybody could provide me with the appropriate word for this phenomenon) and the scribes distinguished the senses by adding a visible but silent classifier. My experience with these languages aided me in understanding the concept of classifiers or co-efficients in Malay, but this conceptual knowledge is less useful than I would like in the practical application, especially since no dictionary of a language which uses classifiers seems to indicate the appropriate one(s) in their entries. This may be a practice akin to languages which use stress not marking this in their dictionary entries. An additional difficulty which I am experiencing in learning Malay is determining when to use a classifier and when to refrain. I trust that practice will give me a better sense of the presence or absence of this feature, although any practical advice would be received with gratitude.

A Little Malay Composition

Sahaya beli chawan kopi di-kedai Vicki terlebeh dahulu dari pada sahaya masok pejabat sahaya dengan adek laki-laki sahaya. Robb dengan Trisha suka minum kopi-kah?

Ada kapada adek laki-laki sahaya dua ekor anjing. Ada anjing jantun tinggi yang besar. Dia lari ka-sana ka-mari di-antara pokok kayu hutan gunong Sierra Nevada. Ada anak anjing betina yang hitam.

Candlelight Concert for the Secours

On Monday, May 31st, I attended a Candlelight Concert celebrating the music ministry of Michael and Catherine Secour. Mrs. Secour was my instructor in the Children’s Choir when I was growing up in the (Episcopal, not Catholic) parish of St Mary the Virgin, and Mr. Secour was my instructor for the Youth Choir until my voice broke unseasonably early. The attendance for this musical festschrift was overwhelming, and underscored how much the ministry of the Secours had meant to so many people.


The program opened with an adaptation of Our Church’s One Foundation adapted for the 10th anniversary of the Secours’ ministry, thirteen years ago. I always experience mixed feelings about adaptations. The change of words to beloved hymns in order to reflect a secular occasion could be seen to violate propriety, yet such changes often indicate affection for the tune as well as the addressee. The tradition of applying new words to a well-known tune is an ancient tradition, whose use ranges from the cheekily disrespectful Carmina Burana (literally, “beer songs”) to the anti-Arian cathedral sit-in of St Ambrose. The third song was a similar adaptation of Psalm 95.


The song between these two was Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. It is a pleasant enough carol, but its rhythm seems a bit jerky and disjointed to me. This slight discomfort perhaps stems from my aural training in modern music, which favors a smoother melody, but it is also possible that this carol was composed with dancing in mind.
The fourth song was an anthem sung by the Children’s Choir. Whenever the Children’s Choir sings, the words are few and repeated many times. It would be an error to overwhelm the wee babes who compose the Children’s Choir with unnecessary complexities, but one of the advantages of this method (and here I speak as an alumnus) is the increase in memorization skills which a short melody with simple lyrics provide.


The fifth song was For the Beauty of the Earth, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. This is my favorite piece out of all that I have sung or heard at St Mary’s, and the one which traditionally Mr. Secour drafted the Thanksgiving returnees to sing - I do hope that whoever replaces him maintains that tradition! Much of what I feel in my heart about this song is ineffable - I genuinely mean this - and so this description is much shorter than one might expect for a song I hold in such affection.


The sixth song was Britten’s Festival Te Deum, with which I am not familiar. The performance was beautiful, but did not pull anything from the wellspring of my memory. UI should mention, however, that Margaret fille was the soloist.


The seventh song was ’Tis a Gift to be Simple, sung by the Children’s Choir. It was considerably more complex than most of the piece which they perform; the Shaker composers, however, were brilliant in their composition because they remembered the plebeian origin of singing and eschewed the complexity which so bewilders and intimidates many who wish to sing for joy rather than jingling coins. This song was a favorite when I attended “hymn-sing” at Cathedral School for Boys. “Hymn-sing” is a topic I may address in a later post.


The eighth song was Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Requiem, which the Youth and Adult Choirs sung; the soloists were Margaret fille and Laura Secour. I have a hard time associating the producer of Cats and the Phantom of the Opera with the composition of a religious work. The ninth song also came from Requiem, and what impressed me most about that performance is how a skilled composer can take lyrics of only a few lines and stretch them over a significant period without dulling their impact by repetition.


The tenth song was Duet from Bach’s Cantata 78, sung by the Youth Choir and the Altos of the Adult Choir, which I half-remembered singing, although it seems likely that I sang it in English - my memory could be faulty here. The performance in case, however, was in German. Memorization of foreign lyrics is significantly harder than memorization of foreign speech, so a successful performance in a foreign language gives me much pleasure.


The eleventh and twelfth songs, both of which the Adult Choir sang, were, respectively, Bairstow’s I sat down under his shadow and Brahms’ How lovely are thy dwellings from A German Requiem, although the language of the latter was English rather than German. Neither of these selections was well-known to me. The final song was a hymn, Ye Holy Angels Bright, (allegedly) sung by everyone, although the Secours had chosen it.


The reception was so crowded that one could barely move and the ambient heat of the room was noticeable if someone were observant. The most notable event for me, however, was the boy who came up to me and introduced himself to me as the boy who had visited the troop the previous week and been so taken with it that he now has plans for joining the troop and coming to summer camp - the world in which I grew up is small and extremely interconnected.

The Third (Phrase About the Son of) Man

This morning, I attended church at Saint James Episcopal for the first time in quite some time. My absence on previous Sabbaths had not been out of sloth, but for various unavoidable causes; it seemed wise, nonetheless, during the life changes, that I assure the congregation that my absence in the next few months did not imply any lack of devotion to the institution.

I was listening to the service, I reached a revelation about something that has irked me for a long time, and irked me more than the sudden onset of scratchy throat this morning right before the first hymn began. The church at which I grew up, Saint Mary the Virgin Episcopal, which is neither Catholic nor attached to its neighboring building, Saint Vincent de Paul, used the following text during Eucharist: "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again". My current church, on the other hand (in addition to many other modifications of the liturgy), uses this: "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ is with us all". I have been meaning for years to ask one of the clergy about this change, but I always forget; now, however, I think that I understand.

It seems to me that the change in the third phrase stems from the ignorance of the masses of grammatical distinction that are subtle yet useful and an attendant miscomprehension of the intended theology of this part of the liturgy. The first phrase is indisputable among Christians (unless you happen to be some sort of neo-Docetist
- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm ),
but the difficulty arises (pun intended) in the English speakers' comprehension of the second phrase: "Christ is risen". Modern English congregants doubtless consider this a simple past, even if the phrase uses the dreaded passive. A speaker of Romance tongue, however, might analyze this phrase differently by distinguishing between "Christ has risen" and "Christ is risen". The former is the description of a past action without any necessary inference about the present, but the latter is the description of a present state dependent on a past action. The distinction between these two concepts largely determines the choice of "avoir" ("to have") or "etre" ("to be") as the complementary verb with a composite perfect in French; even in Latin, where the form of the two concepts is identical, a careful writer who wishes to make the distinction would use distinct "primary sequence" or "secondary sequence" for the verbal forms which follow in the subordinate clause.

Since "Christ is risen" is a description of a present state dependent on a past action, the tripartite temporal symmetry of the statement remains, and past, present, and future each recieve a sentence which they can call their own. "Christ is risen" is a statement about the present, not the past; the risen Christ has present power. The elimination within the English language of the distinction between the "avoir" and "etre" forms has prevented the less grammatically aware congregants from understanding this distinction, and the text comes to lack a Christological statement about the present. I cannot fault anybody for finding this lack unsatisfactory, especially on this day of Pentecost, because the essence of the Christian faith, as I see it, is the not the hope of future salvation, but the presence of Christ in this world right now through the members of his body. The replacement of "Christ is risen" with "Christ is with us all" places the weight of two-thirds of the tripartite division of time (present and future) upon one-third of the weakened tricolon; that one-third, moreover, deprives the statement of its element of future hope, and introduces a participatory element that the first two sentences, as well as the original third, lack. The orignal statement was explicitly and solely Christ-centered, and the results of the statement for believers implicit.

Parks and Propositions

On Thursday, there was an article in the Chronicle (which I still read in the old way, in a café with a coffee) which said that the continuing state budget crisis might force many of the state parks to close their gates. The connection of this unprecedented action with the abject failure of the propositions on the recent ballot is clear enough, but these closures would cripple the outdoor activities of many Scout troops and districts.

On the one hand, I understand why the park service needs money, but I have learned the history of propositions in California and no longer can regard their current use as a substitute for responsible government action as acceptable or worthy of my support. The propositions and initiatives, as originally conceived, were an emergency measure for times of crisis, and had they remained restricted to such times, their use in the current crisis would conscionable. The transformation of the proposition and the initiative into substitutes for governance has not only allowed the government in Sacramento to evade responsibility, but also deprived Californians of a valuable tool by dulling the blade so that the axe is useless when it is most needed. In nineteenth century Portugal, one of the factors in the stall of the national economy (other than the exponential imbecility of the monarchy - read Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty for more information) was the cumulative effect of pious gifts to the church; a third of the land in the entire country was the property of the church, the world’s longest-lived legal person . A similar process happens when pressure groups incite well-meaning citizens to vote for propositions and initiatives that create mandatory uses and set-asides; the individual propositions may or may not add up to an extensive sum, but the cumulative effect is to diminish steadily the amount of flexibility that the state government can practice.

The more immediate effect the closure would have on my way of life would be the sudden and catastrophic deprivation of camping and hiking sites for Troop 14 (my troop) and other troops around the Bay Area. I am sure that we will find new venues or new activities if the closure should happen, but the focus within Troop 14 on camping and hiking (since some troops have a different focus, and I do not presume to know the activities of all other troops in the Bay Area) makes it an area of particular concern.

The effects of closing the parks would be in the main undesirable. Modern buildings, unlike the sturdy stone structures of my academic background, are not designed to weather well without maintenance, and many years of repairing the troop’s traditional campsite at summer camp has taught me that it is more expensive to repair delayed maintenance than to maintain the structure in a regular manner. The population of the parks, too, would change. The absence of both rangers and visitors would encourage an influx of homeless (which might not be altogether bad, if they consumed some of the ubiquitous mule deer and provided a predatory niche whose lack has encouraged the explosive overpopulation) and pot-growers. I should be clear here: my concern in this essay is not the legality or legitimacy of the weed farmers, but rather the displacement of the native flora. I may blog on my thoughts on homeless and potheads on a separate occasion.

I find it exceedingly difficult to write conclusions, and this is my blog, so I feel no obligation to do so.

Malay Exercises 8-9

Ex. 8
1. Rendah tembok puteh itu The white wall is low.
2. Meja panjang itu rendah The long table is low.
3. Bilek itu kechil The room is small
4. Rumah ini tinggi The house is high
5. Bakul hijau itu kosong The green basket is empty
6. Manis buah merah itu The red fruit is sweet
7. Panjang-lah tali itu The rope is long
8. Buku hitam itu besar The black book is big.
9. Daun kechil itu hijau The small leaves are green.
10. Kosong mangkok ini The cup is empty.
11. Bakul yang besar lagi elok A large fine basket
12. Bakul besar itu elok The large basket is fine

Ex. 9
1. The tall house is large Besar rumah tinggi itu.
2. Green fruit is sour. Masam buah hijau
3. Small green leaves Daun hijau lagi kechil
4. The black book is small. Buku hitam itu kechil.
5. A large clean courtyard Halaman yang besar lagi berseh
6. The blue flowers are pretty. Bunga biru itu chantek
7. The long string is white. Tali panjang itu puteh.
8. The white cup is small Mangkok puteh itu kechil
9. The houses were small and low. Rumah itu kechil lagi rendah.
10. Small low houses rumah kechil yang rendah
11. A long thin hand Tangan panjang yang lengan
12. This cord is blue. Biru-lah tali ini

Malay Exercises 4-7

Ex. 4
1. Tulang panjang long bones
2. Kerusi tinggi a high chair
3. Mangkok puteh a white bowl
4. Bilek kotor a dirty room
5. Halaman besar a big courtyard
6. Piring berseh a clean platter
7. Sekolah kechil (“kechik“) a small school
8. Hidong panjang a long nose
9. Suara lembut a soft voice
10. Rambut hitam black hair
11. Bibir merah red lips
12. Buah masam sour fruit
13. Bumbong tinggi a high roof
14. Tembok rendah a low wall
15. Daun hijau green leaves
16. Bunga biru a blue flower
17. Gambar elok a beautiful picture
18. Leher panjang a long neck
19. Muka chantek a pretty face
20. Dahi tinggi a high brow
21. Tangan kotor dirty hands
22. Papan hitam a black board
23. Mangkok kechil a small bowl
24. Kuku pendek a short nail
25. Bakul penoh a full basket
26. Kayu hitam black wood
27. Pinggan puteh a full plate - a white plate
28. Janggut panjang a long beard
29. Lantai hijau a green floor
30. Chawan merah a red tea-cup
31. Buku ini this is a book
32. Rumah kosong an empty house
33. Meja ini this table
34. Kulit itu that hide
35. Papan itu that hand - plank

Ex. 5
1. A white plank papan puteh
2. Empty bowls mangkok kosong
3. White hands papan puteh - tangan
4. Clean nails kuku berseh
5. A short cord tali pendek
6. Big baskets bakul besar
7. Hard wood kayu keras
8. A small picture gambar kechil
9. Large leaves daun besar
10. A clean school sekolah berseh
11. Large books buku besar
12. Blue plates pinggan hijau - biru
13. A short beard janggut pendek
14. Green fruit buah hijau
15. Clean floors. lantai berseh
16. High walls tembok tinggi
17. Long roofs bumbong panjang
18. White planks papan puteh
19. A high house rumah tinggi
20. A large rock batu besar
21. Sweet fruit buah manis
22. Pretty flowers bunga chantek
23. A thin arm lengan kurus
24. Low benches bangku rendah
25. Fat cheeks pipi gemok
26. Small rooms bilek kechil
27. Empty baskets bakul penoh - kosong
28. Dirty floors lantai kotor
29. A small mouth mulut kechil
30. A red bowl mangkok merah
31. This face muka ini
32. Those faces muka itu
33. That head kepala itu
34. These tables meja itu
35. Those eyes mata itu
Ex. 6
1. Bangku tinggi high benches
2. Rendah tembok itu That wall is high
3. Kotor-lah bilek ini The room is dirty
4. Sekolah besar a large school, the school is large
5. Rumah kechil a small house, the house is small
6. Berseh rumah itu The house is clean
7. Panjang-lah tali ini The cord is long, this is a long cord
8. Bunga chantek pretty flowers, the flowers are pretty
9. Mulut besar a big mouth, the mouth is big
10. Kotor pinggan itu the plate is dirty
11. Masam buah ini the fruit is sourt
12. Bumbong rendah low roof, the roof is low

Ex. 7
1. White flowers bunga puteh
2. The fruit is sour masam-lah buah itu
3. The roof is high bumbong tinggi
4. Fine houses rumah elok
5. The picture was large besar gambar itu
6. Dirty hands kotor tangan itu
7. The book is blue biru buku itu
8. A clean floor lantai berseh
9. The basket was empty kosong-lah bakul itu
10. A long arm lengan panjang
11. The chair is low rendah-lah bangku-itu
12. Red fruit buah merah

Phoenix Preserve

Recently I read this article
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090515/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_bird_beach_3)
on the maleo, a bird native to Sulawesi, which put me in mind of the mythical phoenix. The maleo is mostly black, but has prominent pink plumage, yellow facial skin, and red-orange beak color. Both of these colors would lend themselves to the idea of flame, especially in climes where the birds are generally less particolored than in tropic lands. Even the black back of the maleo could be attached to the idea of flame, by way of ash.


The female maleo lays her remarkably large egg in volcanic sand or soil and wanders off. This is not a species where a hen and her brood troop gamely through the forest! When the egg hatches, the young maleo is ready to fly and forage. A full-grown bird emerging from the hot sands would indeed appear to be self-generating. There's no particular association of the maleo with spices, such as the frankincense with which (according to Herodotus) the phoenix immolates himself, but spices came from a wide area of the ancient world, and I am not arguing that the legend of the phoenix reflects biology with full accuracy (see Pliny the Elder for particularly egregious examples). I am, however, convinced that reports of this remarkable bird contributed to the myth of the phoenix.

JROTC Spared?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/12/BAH317IIES.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

I certainly hope that Mr. Yee is right and that JROTC is spared. The sort of students who often sign up for this could use the discipline and collegiality a military program can provide. And if you are a kid from a broken home in a bad neighborhood, what's wrong with seeking a career in the military? My grandfather joined for the job. On the PE credit question, though, I can understand the hesitation. The amount of exercise in comparative military and civilian programs may be equivalent, but I do not know how the individual components compare. Any exercise, however, would be welcome, in the current obesity epidemic.