From "Indigenous Continent" -- Maroon Communities And Horses -- February 3, 2023

Notes for this book are posted here.

MAROONS

Even with all my reading over the past fifty years about  "Indians" and Native Americans and indigenous populations, I never came across this, until now, "maroon communities."

Wiki entry here. 

Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and Islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogos.

Maroon, which can have a more general sense of being abandoned without resources, entered English around the 1590s, from the French adjective marron, meaning 'feral' or 'fugitive'. (Despite the same spelling, the meaning of 'reddish brown' for maroon did not appear until the late 1700s, perhaps influenced by the idea of maroon peoples.)

The American Spanish word cimarrón is also often given as the source of the English word maroon, used to describe the runaway slave communities in Florida, in the Great Dismal Swamp on the border of Virginia and North Carolina, on colonial islands of the Caribbean, and in other parts of the New World.

Linguist Lyle Campbell says the Spanish word cimarrón means 'wild, unruly' or 'runaway slave'.

In the early 1570s, Sir Francis Drake's raids on the Spanish in Panama were aided by "Symerons," a likely misspelling of cimarrón.

The linguist Leo Spitzer, writing in the journal Language, says, "If there is a connection between English maroon, French marron, and Spanish cimarrón, Spain (or Spanish America) probably gave the word directly to England (or English America)."

It is interesting to note that during "the 1590s" there was an explosion of new words, thousands of them first put into "public" use in the late 1500s by Sir Henry Neville (factotum: William Shakespeare).

HORSES

 

Italian Cooking -- February 3, 2023

 

Finally, At 3:04 P.M. -- FBN With Crude Oil Price Story; Hickory, Dickory, Dock -- March 8, 2017

This almost feels like a panic.

But there's something happening here, and you don't know what it is ... 

Ballad Of A Thin Man, Bob Dylan

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A Note To The Granddaughters
Failte gu Alba
Welcome to Scotland

This is so cool. Earlier I ran through the contents of the current issue of The New York Review of Books. I couldn't wait to get started on the essay about The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland. To some extent, the "borderland journey between England and Scotland" was a bit redundant. After all, this is a book about the Marches. LOL.

I should not laugh. I had no idea what "the Marches" were until I read George Eliot's Middlemarch some few years ago.

The essay was good, not great, but good, and then I ran into something that made my day. Do you remember this from an earlier post?

From The Book of Numbers, John H. Conway and Richard K. Guy, c. 1996, page 2:

One such system is:

wan, twan, tethera, methera, pimp,
sethera, lethera, overa, dovera, dick,
wanadick, twanadick, tetheradick, metheradick, pimpdick,
setheradick, letheradkic, hoveradick, doveradick, bumfit,
wanabumfit, ...

Such rustic sequences appear in many countries. They are usually highly corrupted versions of the standard number systems of ancient languages.

Hickory, dickory, doc,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one;
The mouse ran down.
Hickory, dickory, dock.

Probably "hickory," "dickory," and "dock" are the words for "eight," "nine," and "ten" in one of these systems (compare "hovera, dovera, dick"), while "eeny, meeny, miny, mo" mean "one, two, three, four" in another.

Hold that thought.

From the essay today:

One especially telling encounter involves a shepher named Willy Tyson, who at local country shows is celebrated for counting his flock in the ancient Cumbri dialect of Rheged, which the Victorian believed was:

perhaps the last remnant of the lost aboriginal language of [the region], passed down through an oral tradition over forty generations ...

"Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick, yan-a-dick, methera, bamfit, gigot ..."

Something tells me the author of the new book missed a few of the counting words, and might have gotten a few of them wrong ("methera" as both "four" and "twelve"?). Whatever.
Wow, like the Bakken, reading never ceases to amaze me, what I might find.

If We Start Seeing Signifiant Increases in Gas Prices -- The President -- Note To the Granddaughters on Theodore Roosevelt and Hunting

"...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said.

Link here. Note: this site often rounds off numbers. The actual gasoline price rise under the Obama administration has been 83% according to some sources. For newbies, a 100% rise is a doubling in price. For all intents and purposes, an "83-percent" rise in price is a doubling in price.

The extension of the payroll tax cut will help offset this doubling in the price of gasoline, at least according to the president.

President Barack Obama listed rising gas prices as among the many reasons to extend the payroll tax cut Tuesday, flanked by individuals the White House promoted as being affected by $40 per paycheck the average American would lose if the tax cut is not extended at the end of February.

“And when gas prices are on the rise again – because as the economy strengthens, global demand for oil increases – and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said. “One local entrepreneur named Thierry – where’s Thierry? He’s right here.

“He told us that $40 would cover the gas that gets him to his day job, or, alternatively, the Internet service his small business depends on. So he’d have to start making a choice – do I fill up my gas tank to get to my work, or do I give up my entrepreneurial dream. ‘Forty dollars,’ he wrote, ‘means a heck of a lot,’” the president added.

The most important nugget in that link? The payroll tax cut? The doubling in price of gasoline? Nope, this one line:  "...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said.

That, folks, is the first trial balloon of the administration in preparing Americans for an increase in the price of gasoline this spring. $4 gasoline? You betcha. $5 gasoline? Not a problem; the tax cut will cover it. That statement is about as clear a message that can be delivered that the government expects to see $4.00 gasoline this spring.

So, if the payroll tax cut is extended, no more whining about the price of gasoline; it is being offset by a tax cut.  

Oh, by the way, most in Congress now agree that adding $100 billion to the $15 trillion debt is no longer an issue. 

"...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said. 

"Significant." That is not a good word to hear. 

Notes to My Granddaughters

I have almost completed reading (for the first time), Don Aakland's 2010, In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunter's Journey.

This may just be one of the finest books I've read on the subject(s) and it will be sad to have finished it. But I will probable re-read it. The subjects: Theodore Roosevelt; Montana outdoors; hunting; national parks; elk; bison; wolves.

Now that I am finishing it, I wish I had noted some of the best writing, but did not. That's why I will probably go back through it and capture some things to place here. It will be hard not to go overboard.

I will start here:

"...which underscores the oneness of Man the hunter and Man the meat eater. It contains a quotation with which to tease vegetarian friends (if they have a sense of humor). We're told that, in the Blackfeet language, "the term for 'meat' is nita'pi waksin, which translates as 'real food.' All other food is called kistapi waksin, which translates as 'not real food.'" -- p. 234.

The vignette of TR reading Shakespeare's Hamlet to a Texas cowboy when both were stranded in a small hut during a North Dakota blizzard -- priceless. -- pp 250- 251. I particularly enjoyed that vignette (besides being completely surprised by it) because I very much enjoy reading Shakespeare's works to my older granddaughter. At 8 years of age, she knows the plot lines of at least two tragedies, Hamlet and Macbeth, as well as Romeo and Juliet, and a Midsummer Night's Dream, the latter I have never understood nor enjoyed. 

Apple Computer -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Bakken

Updates

January 18, 2012: More Apples landing on corporate desks. I noticed the same thing in the military. Graphics shops, intel shops, and headquarters were the first to get Apples; the rest of us were stuck with WinTel.

Original Post

Link here.

According to IDC estimates, Apple shipped 2 million Macs in the U.S. during the quarter ending Dec. 31, an increase of 18 percent over the same quarter of 2010. Gartner’s number of 2.1 million was slightly higher, as was its 21 percent year-over-year gain by Apple.

All other computer makers in the top five shipped fewer machines in 2011 than they did the year before, IDC and Gartner said.

Again, to repeat: Apple shipped 20 percent more computers in 4Q11 than in 4Q10. All other computer makers shipped fewer. 

I doubt I would have posted that story, but it confirms what I see when I stop in the Starbucks coffee shop on Harvard Square, Cambridge. Yes, one sees a few non-Apple computers, but one is struck by the number of Apple computers in the coffee shop. It is truly amazing.

The most interesting thing: one can spot an Apple computer from across the room. One can identify non-Apple computers, but one cannot identify the brand. Non-Apple computers have been commoditized by WinTel. Apple remains a name-brand computer company.

Apple has become the "new" Gucci. Except "average" folks can afford Apple products and it is not considered too pretentious to use an Apple. It has become bourgeois, if that makes sense, but yet the elite use them. Jean Valjean would have carried an iPhone, if only to coordinate the flash mob at the barricades.

One buys Apple or one doesn't.

I remember articles a couple years ago that iPads would cannibalize iMac (Apple computers); in fact, I argued that first-time buyers of Apple products (via the iPads) would convert to Apple. With Apple one gets the entire community of devices: smart phones, tablets, light laptops, laptops, desktops. And TV to follow.

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On a completely different note, for the past week, I've been enjoying coffee at the Starbucks overlooking Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The most incredible moment: when I turnright to go up the stairs, I feel as if I am back in Yorkshire. The stairs are wooden, worn, and the passageway is dark. One small difference: in Yorkshire the stairway would be only as third as wide. And if the thoroughfare below the Starbucks was much narrower and if the cars were driving on the "wrong" side of the road, I would think I was back in Harrogate. And I wouldn't be on the computer. Smile.

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Diamonds and Rust, Joan Baez
Perhaps one of the most poignant love-songs ever written led me down a rabbit path to this little bit of trivia:

In 1958, her father accepted a faculty position at MIT, and moved his family to Belmont, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. At that time, it was within the center of the up-and-coming folk-music scene, and Baez began busking near home in Boston and nearby Cambridge. She also performed in clubs, and attended Boston University for about six weeks. In 1958, at the Club 47 in Cambridge, she gave her first concert. The audience consisted of her parents, her sister Mimi, and a small group of friends to a total of eight patrons. She was paid ten dollars. Baez was later asked back and began performing twice a week for $25 per show. -- Wiki

"Our" home when "in Boston," is in Belmont, a 20-minute ride on bus route 73 to Harvard Square, Cambridge. A subway stop or two on the Red Line and one is at MIT.


Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word, Joan Baez
A country-western song. I wonder if Norah Jones will cover this one?

The title, "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word" comes from a line in the Tennessee Williams play, Camino Real (no wonder the country-western flavor) in which:

A main theme that the play deals with is coming to terms with the thought of growing older and possibly becoming irrelevant. -- Wiki

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Idle rambling; for the archives; something to share with my granddaughter, Arianna, who at age 8 loves Greek mythology.

From The War That Killed Achilles, Caroline Alexander, c. 2009, remaindered.

The Iliad covers a 2-week period in the 10-year long Greek siege of Troy. The Greek commander, Agamemnon, is the son of one of the most, if not the most, powerful king in "Greece," and is the equivalent of the 5-star general leading the seige. One of his lieutenants, Achilles, is himself a son of a Greek king, but is at best equivalent to a brigadier general (one star); based on his argumentative personality is more like a colonel.

The Iliad starts off with a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, bordering on, if not outright, insubordination. Achilles is upset with Agamemnon's leadership style and war strategy and has told Agamemnon he has not come to the Troad to die:

I, for my part, did not come here to fight the Trojans for their sake, since they have done nothing to me.  Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses, nor spoil my harvest; for indeed there is much that lies between us, the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea.

And then Caroline does this, recalls Muhammed Ali's famous refusal to fight in Vietnam:

I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong ... No Viet Cong ever called me nigger ... I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to help simply continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people.

Some irony that I am reading that on the weekend of celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday and life. It is also interesting to see Ali's use of "dark people." When my five-year-old granddaughter tells me the story of Martin Luther King, she always refers to "dark people," not using other terms. Interesting.

Like WWI, I have never been able to understand the Iliad. Twenty pages in to Caroline's book and I have already had an epiphany. Wow.