Rodney Roe's Open Salon Blog

The Last of the Marmalade

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:01:48 -0500

I finished the last of the orange marmalade this morning. I didn’t want the jar to be empty, but I knew saving the last little bit wouldn’t help.

The marmalade and Downton Abbey make me think of Wendy.

Wendy made the marmalade. It is her mother’s recipe. She has been doing it for years and giving it to friends. This past year she told us it would be her last. That wasn’t Wendy’s way of saying, "I have a terminal illness." It just meant that Wendy is 86 and tired.

Five years ago she drove everywhere, had enormous energy and enthusiasm, and got out and about. I suspect that she has run out of retirement money and is now living on social security. I don’t know how that works for her. She is English, but has lived in the States for 45 years and considers this home. She was a successful photographer, specialized in pet photos, and had her own studio. But she hasn’t done that for years. She has outlived her husband by a decade and lives in a beautiful cottage that one of her daughter’s built for her.

The first time we went to visit Wendy she took us on a tour of her home. One of the rooms had family photos on the wall. Those photos are why Downton Abbey makes me think of Wendy. The photos tell the story of what WWII did to England that America escaped. Two of the photos are of young men; her brothers. They were RAF pilots. They were both shot down and killed. There is a picture of Wendy by a truck, or as she says a lorry. It is the truck she drove as a teenage girl in the war effort.

Downton Abbey and the PBS series Upstairs Downstairs both mentioned the fact that the relationship between the staff and the nobility changed with WWI as footmen and butlers fought side by side with men who had been their employers, changing, forever, the relationship between the classes. The change was even more extreme following WWII.

My mother used to serve Brussels sprouts about once a week. My brother and I both complained about the stinky little cabbages. Mother told us every time that Brussels sprouts kept the British alive during WWII. I told Wendy that story and she erupted in laughter. “Rabbits”, she replied. “What?” “Rabbits. A man came by two or three times a week selling rabbits door to door. It was the only meat we had.”

Rabbits were at one time a pestilence in England. The English rabbit is different than the cottontail of North America. It burrows and lives in tunnels causing destruction of crops and a danger to livestock in the way that prairie dogs do in the U.S. and Canada. So, there was an abundance of rabbits and landowners were glad to be rid of them.

Like many Brits Wendy’s parents moved away from their home near London during the war to avoid being killed by a bomb. The photos on the wall are from that time living in the English countryside. I wondered whether they lived on someone’s estate, and if so, whose estate they lived on? Was the owner killed in the war? Those are questions I never asked and probably never will.

Now, I think, Wendy is just too tired to do much of anything. It’s too bad. She is wonderful company and I’m afraid we will never hear her unfiltered opinions on everything, share an Irish whiskey, and hear her stories. And, besides, she made really good marmalade.

Repost: Why the 99% Can't Win at the Ballot Box

Wed, 6 Jun 2012 10:06:08 -0400

Following the Wisconson elections in which Scott Walker, Republican Governor, fought off a recall I thought this might be worth reposting. Walker and his billionaire funders outspent the Democratic challenge 8:1.

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

A few numbers: (my teachers always said show your work)

A) A) Population of the U.S.A 2010 308,745,538

B) B) ( Population counted in 2000 281,400,000)

C) C) Population over 18 234,646,609

D) D) Less over 85 ( 3.5 M) 231,145,609

E) E) Times 0.99 (99%) 228,834,152

F) F) Times 0.01 (1%) 2,311,456

If each person in (E) donated $10 to the Barack Obama campaign (voting in their own best interests, not those of the 1%) the donations would be $2,288,341,520. The Koch brothers and other members of the 1% would have to donate about $1000.00 to match that.

The problem is that the top 1% can spend $1000.00 on a single fundraising dinner. Those able to donate among the 99% on the other hand are far fewer than the figure in (E). Excluding the 14.3% who live below the poverty line leaves a donating population among the 99% of just 196,110,868. Still, to match the giving of the $1000 dinner would only require a donation of $11.68 per member of the 99%.

Another problem, of course, is that a solid 1/3 of the 99%, individuals who are often near poverty, or in poverty, still identify with the 1%, and will vote against their own interests, some donating to the Koch brothers cause even when they can’t afford it.

I have a friend who I’ve known for nearly 20 years. She was raised surrounded by affluence. Much of her childhood was spent in third world countries with servants. She has been broke all the time that I have known her, surviving on the handouts of relatives. She gets a piddling amount of Social Security because she has never really worked. She is on Medicare and has been assisted by Medicaid because she has had two cancers and had to have public assistance in treating them. She has never been interested in working. Yet, she talks disparagingly about Welfare deadbeats, and thinks of herself, still, as part of the top 1%. It’s just all too bizarre.

Added to this puzzling fact is that the 1% is bigger than (F). There are over 27 million business firms in the U.S. Corporations are now classified as people for the purposes of donating money to candidates.

When I look at the figures I just can’t see how this will work. The political right will barrage the public with lies and half truths often enough that it will be believed. Without donations, the left will be unable to keep telling their side.

It isn’t just Congress that is broken. Our whole economic, legal, and political system has been rigged through the persistent efforts of the wealthy and the 1% have destroyed the wonder that was briefly America.

Population figures from:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/a_age2000.html

Easter Past

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 07:04:17 -0400

Leaf buds at full stop,

Low and in the canopy,

Hide the mountain top.

What to wear today?

Easter frocks and blue kneed girls.

Shall I wear my pealrs?

Nothing is so vain,

As Azaleas in full bloom,

Sparkling after rain.

Sorry, I couldn't catch them after rain.

The Etymologist's Corner: Lying in a Mare's Nest

Sun, 8 Apr 2012 06:04:33 -0400

Warning: if you are not fascinated with words, if your family has not given you a dictionary of Indo-European roots as a Christmas present, you may want to read something else.

The etymology of etymology:

etymology

late 14c., ethimolegia "facts of the origin and development of a word," from O.Fr. et(h)imologie (14c., Mod.Fr. étymologie), from L. etymologia, from Gk. etymologia, properly "study of the true sense (of a word)," from etymon "true sense" (neut. of etymos "true, real, actual," related to eteos "true") + -logia "study of, a speaking of" (see -logy). In classical times, of meanings; later, of histories. Latinized by Cicero as veriloquium. As a branch of linguistic science, from 1640s. Related: Etymological; etymologically.

From The Online Etymology Dictionary.

I’ve met one etymologist in my life. I took a survey of western literature that substituted for a philosophy class under her. I only found out her background when I misspelled “guardian” by switching the “u” and “a” on a Blue Book exam. She wrote the etymology of the word in the margin and pointed out the connection to words like warden and warranty. Fascinating! Here was one of those people who actually write that little blurb that goes in a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary entry.

It’s interesting that the form of the word etymology has changed little from the Greek origin while its usage has changed from a study of meaning to one of history.

Etymology is a sort of archeology of words. Having written this I’m almost overwhelmed by an urge to go look up the origins of archeology.

Speaking of overwhelm, have you heard anyone say, “I was underwhelmed?” Underwhelmed is used in the context of unimpressed. Here is why it makes no etymological sense.

Overwhelm is what I like to call an orphan word. It lives, but its parent whelm is dead, no longer in use.

overwhelm

early 14c., "to turn upside down, to overthrow," from over + M.E. whelmen "to turn upside down" (see whelm). Meaning "to submerge completely" is mid-15c. Perhaps the connecting notion is a boat, etc., washed over, and overset, by a big wave. Figurative sense of "to bring to ruin" is attested from 1520s. Related: Overwhelming; overwhelmingly. From the online etymology dictionary.

The use of underwhelm appeared in 1956 as a facetious comment. It is currently considered slang.

My father used to use the term mare’s nest that was a puzzle to me. It would be used to describe a terribly messy place. Mare’s sleep in stalls not nests. A few years ago the search began for the root of this form. I started with nightmare, imagining that the mare might have the same root. It seems that they do.

Nightmare is from night, straightforward, and mare, not. Mare is an Old English form for a succubus, an evil spirit that comes in your sleep, lying on top of you and suffocating you. It ultimately derives from the Indo-European root mer, to do harm, which is also the root of murder.

(The word nightmare makes its appearance c.1300 in the St. Michael (Laud) manuscript:

Þe luþere gostes...deriez men in heore slep...And ofte huy ouer-liggez, and men cleopiet þe niÈÂt-mare.
(The wicked spirits...injured men in their sleep...And often lay on top of men, and men called them the nightmare.) From wordorigins.org.)

There are cognates of mare in other languages. My great grandfather was Austrian. Perhaps “mare’s nest” was a transliteration of some word in German. Maybe it’s an old English term forgotten everywhere except in my family. I’ve never heard anyone else say mare’s nest, but I’m guessing that it meant a goblin’s lair.

Other ideas are welcome, as well as news of this term in the speech of other families.

An Experiment in Uploading Video

Thu, 5 Apr 2012 21:04:19 -0400

This is an experiment. I have been trying, unsuccessfully to post video in posts for some time. What should follow is a Blondie video of Rapture, one of my all time favorite videos.

Voila!

The music of the '80s was one of my favorite periods in popular music. Don't get me wrong, music of the late 60s and early 70s was innovative and bands like Jefferson Airplane and musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were all fabulous. It was the music of the 80s though, when my kids were becoming teens, that I enjoyed the most.

This Blondie song was interesting because it sort of mixed disco which was fading with rap which was coming on.

The guy in the top hat had some moves.

Here's another "talking" song. James Taylor did a great version, but this group did a great job, too.

I remember being stuck on I-17 in Phoenix in the 70s in a car with no air conditioning in stalled traffic listening to this song.