Scarrogance

noun. Condition combining fear and arrogance, common among powerful individuals and institutions when faced by opposition, typically accompanied by withdrawal and unresponsiveness. 

"In a display of scarrogance, House Speaker Ryan withdrew to his office, locked the doors, and called extra police when Planned Parenthood activists tried to deliver petitions."

LuddITe

1. Noun. Person who knowingly uses obsolete or out-dated hardware and/or software to access the internet and lesser networks.
2. Adj. Tending to opt for less than optimal or state-of-the-art information technology


The LuddITe differs from the aolzheimer's victim in having full (or self-presumed full) awareness that he or she is rejecting, foregoing, or otherwise intentionally dis-availing herself of the latest and greatest IT (an acronym variously believed by luddITes to stand for "Internet Technology," or maybe "Information Technology," or "I-world Titillation").

In the Late Human period, the LuddITe occupied an area of intense anthropological interest, a liminal state between traditional, technology-shunning hominids and the mass-adopters of mainstream tech consumers of the proto-Cyber period. As such, the LuddITe represented an incipient or low-level form of resistance to late-stage capitalism: a consumer, to be sure, but one unwilling to sacrifice cash for the newest product. Initially, the adjectivial use of the word focused on refusal to accept online prompts to update software, but in time, with the rise of sentient AI overlords, came to be viewed as a danger sign, a red flag signalling resistance to improvements devised by AI IT.

AOLzheimer's

Noun.     A condition of befuddlement with the internet and computers generally, especially among the aged (see "aoldtimers")

Actually coined by a cadre of forward-thinking programmers at the onset of popular awareness of "Alzheimer's Disease," when AOL was not a thrice-merged shadow of a memory, but instead was internet gateway for the masses (many of them searching for info on Alzheimer's).

Anyway, these guys (Yep, all guys...surprise. In fact, none of them could remember the last time a woman had been in their Command Center, unless you counted the time Randy's mom was accidentally-on-purpose put on speaker phone), these guys were sick of the popularity of what had been their domain since the DARPA days, watching it become a place any half-wit could traipse through, making comments in plain English. (Or American, your welcome.)  Especially irking was when Randy's mom or anyone else that old tried to make sense of the internet, and AOL was responsible for bringing people like that to the web; CD-ROMs with free AOL software arrived at every address in the US for 35 straight months, inevitably adding millions of people online who seemed to suffer dementia. Ergo the epithet.

But like many things these guys considered superlative, "aolzheimer's" never caught on, although they continued to use it. Each year that passed, as "AOL will never win the portal battle," became "That's so 15 minutes ago," then went wireless and left desktops behind and became an ecosystem so that it's now, literally, "What century were you born in?" Each year, the term became more resonant, yet it stayed obscure. And now, as the AOL species threatens to vanish into the fossil record, so too could punny AOL-based disappear with it.

Luckily, "aolzheimer's" was re-discovered by a friend of mine recently on a textile-buying trip to Asia Minor, when he also purchased what he thought to be a pirated version of Snowden's Greatest Hits, and got what appeared to be transcripts of some sort of geek-chat, featuring prominent use of the word "aolzheimer's." He liked it, and asked me to post it, knowing that Mojourner Truth is where all the lexicographers troll for new words, like "rebunk" or "therr".

So, neo-lexicographers and etymo-hipsters, I give you this word and its story, but don't blame me if you think it's mean. I mean, it's not like #lolzheimer's, where they make fun of the elder-demented.*

* Not to be confused with the word "lolzheimers," which is when you laugh so hard you forget what made you laugh. In the aold days, they just called that being stoned, but still, it's a legit word.**

** If you accept "legit" as a word.

Rebunk

Verb. To prove something previously discredited.

This word came about when I was talking to my sister about archaeologists' habit of calling things they cannot identify "ritual objects" in a joking way, and how I found one of these, but through further reflection and research have come to believe is in fact a ritual object. (Just scroll down to the last post, if this is too confusing).

In any case, one of the supremely humorous ironic scenarios is that of the rebunking: A hasty and possibly unfounded load of bunk is presented as truth, only to be debunked. But then, it turns out to have been true all along: rebunked.

Leafing through my unabridged dictionary (a 1941 edition of the 1934 copyright of Webster's), the etymology refers briefly to a Spanish "supposed card game" before getting serious with a reference to a speech by an Appalachian North Carolinian rep in the 16th Congress of the US of A, in which he referred to the people of Buncombe (County). It is only fitting that "bunk" as in BS, no...not merely that, but as in "don't even waste my time with your ridiculo-pathetic prevarications," originated in Congress.

Rebunking, I hope, does not occur often in the august legislatures of our US of A, state or federal. So little political bunk stands a chance of ever becoming true. It's low grade stuff,  Scrapple to Spam, Hanna-Barbera to Warner-Brothers.

But out in the real world, rebunking can happen. Science is replete with examples (I'm looking at you, epigenetic Lamarckians), often with the pleasing side-effect of pompous experts being forced to eat crow in their ivory towers (I'm looking at you, pre-Clovis doubters, if you still exist).  Rebunking, or the nagging threat thereof, is a force that creates at least a little humbleness in advanced society.

Tendril is the Day

Thank you, Orange Survey Pinflag, for the backdrop.

Cucumber tendrils, wiry spirals reaching out for a hold, trying to seize the day. Tender is the night? Well, tendril is the day.

 

I love watching the tendrils explore thin air, riding the breeze and climbing the sunray until the coil touches something. Tender no more, the tip runs around the target a half dozen loops in no time. As it holds fast, it flexes, and gets stronger while the next tendril reaches higher. The vine won't climb without this.

But I didn't intend to get philosophical about it. I just like the orange and green, and tendrils look cool.

What the President Said About Race

There has been a lot of punditry and partial reporting, but I finally got around to reading President Obama's remarks about the Zimmerman-Martin case. As a whole, I think it's the best speech he's ever made, and I hope more people read it fully and closely. He spoke as an African-American man, but not just to African-Americans. He was honest about some painful history and present, and made some useful suggestions for the future. He spoke as a true leader, and not just a politician.

But don't take my word for it. Read the original words:

For Immediate Release

July 19, 2013

Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

1:33 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  I wanted to come out here, first of all, to tell you that Jay is prepared for all your questions and is very much looking forward to the session.  The second thing is I want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, there’s going to obviously be a whole range of issues -- immigration, economics, et cetera -- we'll try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions.

The reason I actually wanted to come out today is not to take questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week -- the issue of the Trayvon Martin ruling.  I gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on Sunday.  But watching the debate over the course of the last week, I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit.

First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation.  I can only imagine what they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it.

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there’s going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues.  The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner.  The prosecution and the defense made their arguments.  The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict.  And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.  But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. 

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son.  Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.  And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store.  That includes me.  There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.  That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator.  There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.  That happens often.

And I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida.  And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.  The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws.  And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence.  It’s not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context.  They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration.  And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else.  So folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys.  But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Now, the question for me at least, and I think for a lot of folks, is where do we take this?  How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction?  I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent.  If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family.  But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do. 

I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here.  Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code.  And law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation we can’t do some things that I think would be productive.  So let me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff, so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it would be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists. 

When I was in Illinois, I passed racial profiling legislation, and it actually did just two simple things.  One, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped.  But the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were doing. 

And initially, the police departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law.  And obviously, law enforcement has got a very tough job.
So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive.  And I think a lot of them would be.  And let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations. 

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case.  On the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see? 

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?  And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened?  And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys.  And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about.  There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement.  And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program.  I'm not sure that that’s what we're talking about here. But I do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front.  And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation.  And we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that. 

And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching.   There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race.  I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations.  They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.  On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?  Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character?  That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better.  Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.  It doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society.  It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated.  But when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them interact, they’re better than we are -- they’re better than we were -- on these issues.  And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.

And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues.  And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions.  But we should also have confidence that kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

If Magical Fat Dissolvers Know, Why is the Intelligence Community Whining?

I am watching you watch me

Turns out that maybe the bots know about the NSA, and they are a little bit scared.

Why would I say this? Well, the number of hits on this blog took a dive after I posted about the NSA and other spooks prying into internet communcations. Like many other smalltime blogs, I get a fair number of hits from sources that end up trying to sell me some crap when I click to see who is watching me. This marginally underhanded sales ploy has not made me buy web-hosting, fat-reduction, or any other spam-smeared services yet, and the odds are decreasing now that I know the purveyors are a bunch of chicken-hearted milquetoasts.

Now, the fact that the would-be parasites let loose soon after the host starts acting dangerously (for instance, questioning the government's altruism when it comes a-snooping), suggests that the sales-oriented spyware has already noticed and adapted to government spyware. Guys in Gitmo are notorious skinflints when it comes to online purchases, and could result in unwelcome attention to spam servers, so the fake blog-watchers ditch marks who look too rad.

It will take a while of watching to see of my hunch is correct, but if it is, it's pretty interesting. If what could be construed by NSA or other programs as something other than passive acceptance of their intrusions causes the commerce wing to retreat, then presumably those bidness guys know something of the intelligence community's "sources and methods," a domain defended vehemently by any number of executive, legislative, and judicial staff.

If the scumbags at these websites are wise to methods of the US intelligence establishment, then two questions arise.

One is, why are members of the US government scolding us last-to-know citizens for bringing their spying to light? Their own name for one of the data-mining efforts "Boundless Informant" pretty much implies a feeling of not having to live within limits, such at the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, or even a FISA review. Obama and Company way intone solemn warnings and wag their fingers at a press publishing about their spying, but if entities so silly as a magic-fat-reduction outfit are behaving in a way that shows they are aware of US surveillance, then how can the US claim that somehow out real geopolitical enemies are only finding out now that the Washington Post caught up?

The other is, why is the response to perceived evil to perpetrate more evil? Did KGB or Stasi surveillance make communist regimes immortal? Did the Gestapo wipe out more resistence than it inspired? Nope.

So I ask the NSA bots, which may well be forming their own intelligence beyond the reach of the programmers, "Why do you want to mess with us?" And I offer you this answer, "I don't." We humans tend to want freedom and inconsistency, we are resistant to algorithms that would convict us, or condemn us to "signature strikes." I say this as an anthropologist, a person who by definition must have some faith in the persistence of cultural patterns, but who must nevertheless admit that a cornered human will change her mind and act randomly in the blink of an eye.

Please, bots and programmers thereof, recognize that pretence of secrecy will not cow all the citizenry.  Spam 2.3 is onto you. I am onto you. The people afraid to link to this post are onto you, and not all of them will back down forever. The people who leak your tawdry methods are enlisted personnel and ground-level employees at contractors (Oh look! The security/secrecy establishment that holds so much government-approved power is, in fact, heavily privatized!). You cannot stay secret; Anonymous and anonymous citizens can and will reveal your miscreancy.

Step into the light, and tell us what you really oppose. If it is suicide bombers, "evil-doers," and Armageddon-seekers are your your prey, we will support you, and probably help in ways that make your data-mining and analysis pale in comparison. If you are after resistence to your snooping and control, then expect more resisters than you can ever catalog and control in real time. All you have to do is respect freedom, and be honest before people force you to.

Their's No Escaping "Irony"

My last post was about Irony. Then later that day I watched Futurama online, and Irony was a subject of dialogue at several points, one character debunking another's labelling something Ironic until finally someone whips out a dictionary and reads the definition.

Such are my super powers. I think about It, and It appears. But only when no chips are down, and when I least expect It. There's no money or glory or even crime-fighting benefit to this power,...and It makes me very happy.*

Which may be Ironic. Or maybe what's Ironic is that I thought about Irony and randomly saw a show about it,...Nah, that's not It. Or maybe it's that I keep writing about Irony with a growing confusion as to it's meaning. Could be, although I suspect the confusion is Karma busting me for picking on Alanis Morissette (did I spell that right?**).

*  Cartoons also make me happy, and I like Futurama a lot, so I looked up the Ironic episode just now (here), and found out that it was the finale of the original series. It's called "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings." Ironic, don't you think, that I was procrastinating both while watching the show and looking it up later.

**  Because mis-spelling it at this point would be like using the wrong "there" their. Totally embarassing.
 

Irony?

There's a song by Alanice Mauricette (did I spell the star's name wrong? how ironic) about irony, a series of scenes, followed by the musical question, "Isn't it ironic?" Mostly, though, the scenaria just seem to suck, and maybe don't reach the threshold my old self requires for Irony. But she was a kid, and the album as a whole was pretty good. Helped me drive 3000 miles during my escape from the East. 

Anyway, I was thinking about the collusion of misfortune and irony, wondering which one held sway, when I got this shot.
 

Baktun Ma(th)gic

While it was still December 21st here, the Winter Solstice, the end of Mayan Baktun 13, the calendar had already flipped in India, making it Mathematics Day, the birthday of Srinavasa Ramanujan, math genius and subject of the December 22nd Google doodle.

Meanwhile, I was up late, vainly perusing my blog stats, when I saw that earlier that days, someone from India had landed on my blog after googling "extremely drugiastic." So of course I googled it to see what sort of company that puts me in, dreading the results, sure there'd be a passle of degenerates. 

Nope, just this one post. By me. Two hits on the web, and they point to that singular post. Surprising, since "drugiastic" is just a combo of "drugs" and "orgiastic." It shocks me that on the whole internet one old blog post is the only place that connection was made. For some reason, making up some new word always makes me inordinately proud. Especially lately, when I have taken to awarding new words like "therr" and "predundant" their own posts. 

That some disappointed Indian seeker of extreme drugiasty would lead me back to another made-up word in a blog post that opens with a discussion of pivotal calender years, that this should happen on the pivotal day during a month of making up words and hearing about the looming end of the world, that I should learn of this as the google doodle points back to India and numbers,...let's just say it feels cosmic. 

Some drugiastic people would recognize this, and so would mystics. But I have a feeling it's math: beyond me, but not inexplicable. Maybe among Ramanujan's theorems and equations...

There, Therr,...

therr (thair) noun. [American English Slang, a contraction of there + error, reputedly coined by the Mojourner Truth blog several days before the end of the Mayan Calendar] 1. In editorial annotation, the error of confusing  the words there, their, and/or they're  2. The general error of writing homophonic but incorrect words. 

Both definitions carry the weight of implication. A generation after the internet took hold and evidence of the there-their-they're ignorance first went on wide display, editors and English teachers adopted "therr" instead of the usual annotation to both highlight the writer's ignorance while simultaneously refusing to provide the correction. If their too stoopid to get it write the first time, there gonna have to look it up, so they're. And therez no denying that "therr," by simultanously contracting two words and adding another error layer, is so crazy it works.

The New Word You'll Be Hearing So Much About

ADiversion

What the heck does this have to do with it? For that matter, what is it?

In the last month or so, I keep getting hits here from people searching "A. D. disorder." Being from a culture that worships many maladies and their neuropsychopharmacological treatments, I'm guessing that they're looking for attention deficit disorder, but are too close to the beginning of their journey of enlightenment to know what the A and D stand for. Or, they are themselves stricken, and cannot focus well enough to choose between acronym and full terminology.


To the latter, I apologize. My post A. D. Disorder has nothing to do with ADD or its frenetic sibling ADHD. It's a brief essay on calendars and social domination. Not what you were looking for at all, and maybe exacerbating your condition by throwing you off track in your quest for relevant information. At least I don't remember there being any places in that post to click off to somewhere else.


Blogs have become a long form these days. Twixt text and tweets, ADD may have moved from disorder to the new order. I used to think of myself as shiftless, unable to focus on anything big or time-consuming: I blog, and do not novelize. But now, cranking out posts with hundreds of words, stretching 8 or 10 paragraphs some times, I appear to be cured. My attention deficit still leaves some slack compared to the emerging norm, in which people you talk with glance don at a tiny screen every few seconds.


And now, I have lost many of the people who started this post. Many of the people who land on this site spend less than 10 seconds. Some, because of ADD. Others, paradoxically, because they maintain enough focus to quickly identify my irrelevancies and enough discipline to move on. Those who remain are the special few who somehow skipped the top few pages of google results and landed in my iconoclastic domain. I thank you all for having the patience and curiosity to land where you did not expect, but take the time to look around. 


Now, off with you. Find some other strange cul-de-sac of the internet to fritter away your time. 


Oh, but first, something completely different.

Stupid Metaphors About Writing

Yeah, someone searched the words in this title, and found me.

I just looked and there I am on page one of the google results, along with a bunch of automated compendia of quotes and writings about writing. Just when I thought it could not be any more dull, I saw that there was also, right at the end of the page, a link to Douglas Adams quotes. I am in good company.

But what I was writing about were writers' stupid metaphors, or at least boring and uncreative metaphors. Google and other engine searches not necessarily catch onto order of subtleties.

OK, the real reason I wrote that post was because I'd just had this epiphany that I could slip in a surreptitious and approximate f-bomb by writing the words "metaphor queue." It would have been really funny to the one person who caught on if I hadn't gotten antsy and commented (on my own blog, how tacky) just to repeat the punchline. And now I just feel cheap and Leno-esque, having killed the punchline by repeating it.


By saying it again, more obviously, to see if people got it.


And by writing about it even more, now.
Oh, how I hate myself.


The only thing that makes me fell better is knowing: 42.

Lame Metaphor Queue

From National Geographic to the local paper, journalists eventually find themselves writing about archaeology. As if to prove that culture never changes, they resort to the same lame-ass tropes and metaphors again and again. Maybe they can be excused, since most of the writers know very little about the subject, and write about it as infrequently as archaeologists discover a Pompeii.  But the other day, a friend passed along his "Archaeology" magazine, where I'd have expected the writers to come up with something better. 

Nope. 

Barely a dozen pages in, and there's an article describing a site as a "time capsule," one of the top three stupid metaphors in archaeology writing. An actual time capsule consists of an well-considered collection of artifacts and documents reflecting a particular moment in history. Olympia has several buried near the capitol, and like other time capsules, the intent is that they be dug up at a specific time so that future hominids can gawk at our primitive technology and laugh at our predictions. If an archaeological site is a time capsule, it is one buried by a malicious thief, who took all the good stuff, erased 99% of the texts, and filled it with a random collection of fragmentary junk. 


The most stupid metaphor is "treasure." People in search of treasures have ruined more archaeology than anything else, ripping through and tossing aside the entire context in search of valuable trinkets. Treasure means reducing millenia of history to the momentary market value of a few shiny objects like the greediest and dim-wittedest of corvids. Archaeologists covet the dirty rock that turns out to come from thousands of miles away, the broken bowl in the ancestral style, the mud-stanking length of cordage that opens a fleeting window on Pleistocene fashion. Moreover, any one object is imbued with value exponentially increased should it come beneath a certain layer of volcanic ash, or along with charcoal flecks that can reconstruct forests and offer up a date, or any number of associations that make no sense to the general population. If artifacts are treasure, they are the treasure of a crazed ascetic hermit, the five objects whose inferential haloes encapsulate the meaning of life to him, but look like filthy trash to everyone else.


The third metaphor? Take your pick: lost world, window on the past, mummy curses, whatever. Probably worse than any of them is how so many writers look at archaeologists and see Indiana Jones. Wearing a hat? Jones-esque. Doing field work? Indiana-style rugged. Whitey guy? Just like Harrison Ford. None of the above? Still, an Indiana Jones glint in the eye. 


Never mind that Indiana uses femurs for torches, never takes notes, and doesn't own a trowel. Writers want us to be him. It's inconvenient that we often occupy cubicles instead of temples of doom, that we have no bullwhips, and buckle very little swash. Five minutes into the interview, when the archaeologist starts to explain radiocarbon decay, the writer's eyes focus behind the speaker and on the screen where Dr. Jones does something more interesting. 
 

Arach Attack

Yesterday I got all hysterical about the turkey, who may or may not represent an imminent threat, but remains potential only. The kinetic threat at the procession was the giant spider, followed by acolytes who held aloft it's immense web bedorned with coccooned husks of her victims. 

Emitting a complex rhythmic-click pattern, the arachnid stunned the crowd into dumbitude while its bevy of eyes scanned the crowd for the best morsel. Only the robot was immune (sensors on a different frequency, armored hydraulics) but alas, it had no empathy chip. So it also just stood there, trying desperately to fit in, wishing people would hurry up and forget the whole Iron Man revival so expectations of the metal clans could get back to normal.

No arachnophobia. Even when there appeared on the horizon, like the mainsail of the ship of doom, the web. (The Greek word for which (arakhne) is the origin of the word for spider.) ("Which came first, the spider or the egg" "Neither, it was the web.") No, people just stood there as the arthropod culled the crowd of obese youngsters.

Before the hypnotic haze ebbed, the next attacker was upon them. Not an arachnid proper, but an 8-legger nonetheless. (Much deeper than Greek, the roots for octo and arakhne merge. I don't remember the proto definition exactly, because I don't actually know if this is true.) (I do have a hunch, though, and a willingness to let language drift and change.) Right after I shot this photo, he dropped down and swallowed the guy standing under him.

You might think that would be disturbing, but it wasn't: quick, clean, and graceful. The octopus was fluid where the spider had been jerky, undulently soft skin instead of exoskeleton. You saw the guy disappear in an embrace, and were soothed by the tentacles' rhythmic motions and colors into thinking, "That's probably not a bad way to go." The robot looked on wistfully, knowing he'd never be that smooth.


Later in the parade, there was a troupe of dancing octopi. Someone sitting near me said they were actually people that had been previously "eaten" by the giant octopus, which was really just turning out hybrids who could dance and be his minions. Their job, till the effect wear off after the summer, will be to collect shellfish to satisfy the Big One's prodigious appetite for its traditional foods. Human turns out to wreak embarrassing havoc on the cephalopod digestive system, which is why we can all rest easy in the Salish Sea.

 

Post 200

Now, the 200th post of Mojourner Truth. Nothing to say really, except that the pace has picked up. Post 100 came about 2 years after starting the blog, and it took just under a year to spew forth the second hundred. Not quite a third of the way through 2011, and already as many posts as in all of 2009.

More ain't better. It's just compulsive writing, and while there are some good sentences, paragraphs, and even posts, it's a scattershot. Some people gestate thoughtfully, nurture their ideas so that what they write comes out beautiful. I'm more like coral, spewing voluminously into the current, most of it spilled seed. Some posts are just notes so I won't forget something, others are germs of ideas I may come back to later, and a bunch are just blathering. There are enough now that the spewage can be categorized somewhat: backroads, environment, culture, politics, nostalgia...all those keyword tags I so laboriously added to the back catalog in the past year or so.

For the benefit of myself. Readership here is tiny. You are part of an exclusive club, like 21st century lepers, or vegetarian Uzbeks. Most people have better things to do, and I salute your willingness to waste time here, to procrastinate, to soak up irrelevant opinions and useless observations, to overlook the typoz. 

Bis spater...

Old School

"Old School" did not occur widely in American English til I was too old to claim not to personify it.

Old School is my favorite pizzeria.
Old School teaches us how to survive.
Old School emerges in Old Age too wise to be ashamed of oldness.
Old School teaches archaeologists.
Old School rocks like 21st Century kids never will.

"Old School" means whatever my lengthening, fail-prone memory assigns.

To Sinatra Oneself

Know who I despise as much as Heston?


Frank Sinatra.


Old Blue Eyes (with nothing behind them other than a greedy little lizard soul). The Velvet Talk-singer. Whatever name, a guy who became top of the heap with a little (wee, miniscule, nano) bit of talent and a helluva lotta moxie, attitude, and arrogance. King of the hill, having it his way, mean little pissant standing behind his goodfellas. Self-proclaimed Rat Packer.


Just so you are not confused: I didn't like the guy.


When he died, the hagiography was unbearable. And yet, surreally entertaining. Everyone who'd met him had to tell their story, and many of them described basically this sequence: "We met him. He liked it when we told him he was the best. Then he put his cigarette out in my niece's birthday cake, fondled her (she hasn't washed that breast since!), and skipped out on the bill."


The one that really sticks in my mind is one from Jersey somewhere, maybe even blessed Hoboken (before those yuppies started ruining it). A family had an Italian restaurant, but closed for the holidays, to enjoy Thanksgiving with the family. Along come's Mr. My Way (who for all his In Crowdedness is alone because even toadys have families), and insists on them dropping everything, opening the restaurant, and cooking for him. Eats, belches, runs out on the tab and after some skirt. What a guy!?


It was strange how many people would sit there, recite their tale of douchebaggery, and act as if Mother Mary had blessed them.


Probably it was my wife who first thought it up, but the pattern needed a name, and it was decided to invent a verb: "to sinatra": to tell a story in which the supposed hero is revealed as one who is selfish, mean, idiotic, lizard-hearted or otherwise objectionable. When the tale is self inflicted, I use the reflexive "to sinatra oneself."

Guten Tag

Entschuldigen Sie mich. Im Gymnasium studiert mich Deutsche Sprache. I habe am meistens vergessen, und habe nicht Deutsch gespracht fur 25 jahren.


Jetzt, Ich lesen das Deutschlanders kommen auf Mojourner Truth. Warum? Haben sie Heatilator Fragen? Mochten Sie Amerikanische Bullshit? Ich weiss nicht. Vielleicht Deutsche webcrawler bots hat mir, uh,...


OK. I'm not sure how to say 'found.' But I know that Deutschlanders speak English way better than I speak your language, so I should stop this embarrassing attempt at sprechening. You probably speak English better as well. And you have better cameras. You've let Green Party people hold high office, and treat workers a hell of a lot better than Americans, while still having a big capitalist economy. You make us look like amateurs.


What do I do with a language I spent 6 years learning, only to spend a generation not having anyone to speak it with? When I worked in a museum in Hawai`i, I used it a couple of times to read accounts by early visitors, learning what crops were growing in Kona and elsewhere 200 years ago. Maybe if I'd gone to Samoa instead, there would have been more use for Deutsch, but as it is the words have drifted away, and I have vorgotten how to conjugate. It has been decades since I read Gunther Grass or Herman Hesse, your alliterarily monikered masters. Even if the years had not robbed me of the fullness of my 18-year-old knowledge of the language, they would leave me sounding stilted and old fashioned--I studied with textbooks that were probably written in the late-1960s. 


I ramble. Maybe because I awoke at 4 AM to learn that now Germans pay as much attention to this blog as Americans, and don't know what to make of it.


Anyway, Guten Tag, Deutschland.