Author Archives: Ponderer

About Ponderer

Ponderer also writes science fiction and science-inspired rhyming poetry. Check her out at katerauner.wordpress.com/ She worked at Rocky Flats for 22 years - you may know her as Kathy London.

Third Wave of Racism in America?

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New Jim CrowSlavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration – are these the evolution of racism in America?

The New Jim Crow is written by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and associate professor at Stanford Law School. She says that over ten years of working for the ACLU she has come to believe that liberal and civil rights groups are failing to recognize an important issue – mass incarceration – and failing to recognize that it is a racial issue.

Part of the problem is that no one wants to be seen as favoring criminals. As Alexander notes, there were several blacks who personally fought segregation on buses, but if they resisted arrest or had unsavory relatives, they didn’t make a good test-case for civil rights leaders. Rosa Parks became that test case because, not only did she refuse to give up her seat, she was unimpeachable.

Alexander defines mass-incarceration as time in prison, plus notes that “ex-offenders are discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives… in voting, employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service.” This creates a permanent underclass and, since black and brown men are incarcerated at much higher rates than whites for the same crimes, this is a racial underclass.

She failed to realize this herself for many years, so “knowing as I do the difficulty of seeing what most everyone insists does not exist, I anticipate this book will be met with skepticism… may seem like a gross exaggeration… this book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow.” Continue reading →

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup

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That is, on any project, if too many people give orders, the project will fail. Searching for this phrase turns up many references to a short parody video. I tried my search by adding -parody -infomercial.

rollsoffthetongue notes variations such as “too many cooks spoil the… soup, broth, or stew.” They say “this is a very old saying or proverb that exists in many languages. In English, it dates back to at least the 16th century when it first appeared in print,” but do not list the citation.

Phrase Finder lists the phrase as originating in another language but, alas, offers no details.

dictionary.reference.com agrees “it was already considered a proverb in 1575.”

RF_alum and I were discussing this phrase when I complained of contradictory comments in a critique of a novel I’m working on. On the plus side, if comments are contradictory I feel justified in doing whatever I want.

No Rest for the Wicked

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I thought I knew something about this phrase, but I was wrong. I expected to read that it began as “no rest for the weary” and the term “wicked” had been added, perhaps for humor. I think of the phrase as meaning “I can’t get a break” with the speaker referring ironically to themselves.

Wikipedia says the wicked were, indeed, the original subjects and the phrase comes from a common source, the Bible:

  • Isaiah 48:22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”
  • Isaiah 57:20 “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”
  • Isaiah 57:21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “to the wicked.”

Phrase Finder states the phrase “was first printed in English in Miles Coverdale’s Bible, 1535… Its use in a figurative secular sense became much more common in the 1930s and it is now usually used for mild comic effect.” Wikipedia lists many uses of the phrase in popular entertainments – I was reminded of it by a character on TV last night.

Wordcourt notes that the common usage simplifies the biblical quote. “At any rate, ‘no rest for the wicked’ has been a set phrase at least since 1876, when it appeared in the caption of a cartoon on the cover of an issue of Harper’s Weekly. As for ‘no rest for the weary,’ superficially it makes more sense, don’t you think? This idea too, though not the exact wording, can be found in the Bible, in the Book of Lamentations: ‘Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are weary and find no rest.'” So maybe my memory isn’t so bad after all.

If Your Job Were a Video Game, Would You Play It?

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Our recent Great Recession drew attention to declining participation in the workforce – that is, a growing percentage of our population is unemployed by chance or by choice. The trend started before the last days of Bush 43’s administration – consider the regional depression that accompanies the demise of Youngstown steel mills since the late 1970s. Continuing automation – robots and software, from hospital operating rooms to fast food outlets – is replacing workers. The self-driving car, a true auto-mobile, “could soon threaten driving, the most common job occupation among American men.”

So says Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. (Enter World Without Work in your favorite search engine – the article inspires quite a few responses.) America’s most valuable company in 1964 was AT&T employing over 700,000 workers. Today’s communications giant of similar value is Google, employing 55,000.If the trend continues, the world will look very different at the end of the 21st century than it does today, but “the signs so far are murky.”

Why do people work?

  • For money, of course. Thompson points to the 19th century as a possible model of a time with few wage-jobs, but I have trouble envisioning a nation of subsistence farmers arising. Even if it did, some cash is needed (I think it was in the 19th century, too.) People need food, housing, and also a share of their society’s norms, and money buys those things.
  • For “a routine, an absorbing distraction, a daily purpose… Many people are happier complaining about jobs than they are luxuriating in too much leisure.” Most jobs aren’t fulfilling – Thompson asks, if your job was a video game, would you play it? But unemployed people – including retirees – watch TV rather than pursue their dreams. Even crummy jobs provide structure within a community, and human beings are social animals.

Continue reading →

Pardon my French

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Phrase Finder has an article on “Pardon my French” or “Excuse my French.”

“A coy phrase used when someone who has used a swear-word attempts to pass it off as French. The coyness comes from the fact the both the speaker and listener are of course both well aware the swear-word is indeed English… This usage is mid 20th century English in origin. A version of it is found in Michael Harrison’s All Trees were Green, 1936.

“The source of the phrase is earlier and derives from a literal usage of the exclamation. In the 19th century, when English people used French expressions in conversation…For example, in The Lady’s Magazine, 1830: When a speaker says something rude about her compatriot’s appearance, then apologized for doing so in French, but not for the rudeness itself.”

Today I Found Out presents a lengthy list of conflicts between France and England that might lead to English speakers ascribing curse words to French.

Method in My Madness

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Dictionary.com defines this phrase as meaning “a plan behind a person’s apparently inexplicable behavior.” The source is no mystery. Phrase Finder notes this phrase came from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 1602, but it has been adapted over time. The actual line from the play is ‘Though this be madness yet there is method in it‘.

Interestingly, the Oxford Dictionaries lists the quote in the modern form: “whatever he was about, there was method in his madness [From Shakespeare’s Hamlet ( ii. ii. 211)]”

Sparknotes clears this up by presenting the original text and modern adaptation side by side:

  • Original – POLONIUS says (aside) Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.—(to HAMLET) Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
  • Modern – POLONIUS says (to himself) There’s a method to his madness. (to HAMLET) Will you step outside, my lord?

I’m happy to see the modern version, though the translator isn’t cited. I’ve never been very fond of Shakespeare because it’s practically a foreign language. I’m sure some people will, however, be horrified at the translation.

It sometimes seems as if Shakespeare coined half of the English language.