What a long day. I woke up at 4 a.m. and never really got back to sleep. I worked out and did a ton of the other kind of work before I headed out for an event put on by one of our nonprofit media partners, a look at Detroit a year after bankruptcy.
Check out the Twitter. Didn’t go well.
I’ll tell you the whole story tomorrow, hopefully with at least a couple photos. For now, I need a break. One of the things that woke me up at 4 was a persistent throbbing in my ear that suggests an infection, and I have to see the doc in the morning.
So, some bloggage to tide you over:
The strangeness of local customs and taboos, in Liberia, regarding ebola. A great read.
Trump nation feeds on your contempt:
On Saturday, Goacher shook Trump’s hand at a Davenport campaign rally. He noticed the smooth texture of Trump’s palm.
“He didn’t have to work as hard as I did with my callused hands,” said Goacher, 56. “If a man can become a billionaire without having to work that hard for it, he’s evidently a pretty smart man, money-wise, and the United States has to be run as a business.”
Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.
Back tomorrow. Hopefully on antibiotics.
Dexter said on December 10, 2015 at 1:29 am
My boyhood friend Wayne’s dad was a crazy old coot with nutty homespun remedies. Of course he had an instant cure for earaches: grab a tin can and pee into it. Let it set overnight by your bed. In the morning tilt your head and …you got it! You pour the pee into your ear canal. He had remedies for all maladies, but that’s the only one that stuck with me. Oh yeah…Wayne said it worked. I remember telling Dad about the cure, and he said “that crazy son of a bitch is liable to do anything.” Save your co-pay, nance…you now know what to do.
John Trudell shockingly (to me) died at age 69. One helluva interesting fellow. I just happened to be in California, making frequent forays into San Francisco when American Indians seized and occupied Alcatraz for a long time. Trudell was quoted often in The Examiner and Chronicle, as he was spokesman for the movement. This was the greater portion of 1970. Over the years, Trudell was around with his poetry and an acting career…a man of many diverse talents. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/12/08/remembering-life-and-legacy-john-trudell-162697
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David C. said on December 10, 2015 at 6:38 am
Winning the lucky sperm contest makes someone presidential timber? OK.
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Suzanne said on December 10, 2015 at 6:55 am
Ugh. The “run government like a business” trope. It makes me insane. By all means, feel free to use some business sense while running the government, but it isn’t a business (which exist, as conservatives love to remind us, to make money). They love to frame a government budget like a family budget, but I don’t think refusing to feed my children to save money in my budget would work all that well.
I’m guessing tRump supporters think he’s rich because he’s smart is because most of them have never been around really smart or really rich people.
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Connie said on December 10, 2015 at 6:57 am
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/detroit-reborn/2015/12/10/deroit-bankruptcy-anniversary/77052694/
The Freep story. Looking forward to your version.
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beb said on December 10, 2015 at 8:04 am
Someone should tell Mr. Goacher that anyone who has never worked a day in their life doesn’t know the meaning of money.
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Deborah said on December 10, 2015 at 8:41 am
I agree that running the government like a business is not the answer. Didn’t they try that with the schools and it didn’t work? Running the economy like your family budget is wrong too, at least according to Krugman, and I believe him.
On a completely different note, the radio show “Serial” is starting season 2. I got totally hooked on season 1. This season it’s about Bowe Bergdahl, which should be fascinating. I’m psyched.
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Jerry said on December 10, 2015 at 8:43 am
MichaelG ar 45 yesterday. I don’t remember the Limpopo in Dr Doolittle, although it may well make an appearance. But you’ll certainly find it in Kipling’s Just So Stories – The Elephant’s Child – which tells how the elephant acquired a trunk in place of the small boot-like object it started with. And I’d recommend The Just So Stories for children to read or have read to them.
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brian stouder said on December 10, 2015 at 9:41 am
Our young folks all turned out to be readers, and we ran into a little thing which would cause readers everywhere to nod their heads in recognition.
Shelby (our 17 year old) read something with a character named Lucille in it, and in conversation with her mom kept referring to a character named “luckily”…
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Heather said on December 10, 2015 at 10:07 am
My hands are smooth too. And I like to think I’m smart. Why am I not a billionaire?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 10, 2015 at 10:18 am
May I share a bit of good news with y’all? If you click the hyperlink, you’ll end up with a browser page of the pdf of our county transitional housing program. There have been some amazing success stories for people we’ve helped work through our support to self-sufficiency, including the lady who is moving this week into her own Habitat house (hat tip, Jimmy Carter!), and two families in our congregation large-unit housing through LCCH who have gone one to their own homes and solid employment.
And I really want to embarrass my friend and executive director, whom I’ve introduced to this site, and who will almost certainly not comment, but will see your reactions if you choose to read the newsletter and see the article celebrating her 20 years helping drive this wacky busload of staff, board members, and community partners. Hat tip, Deb T.! Please help me tell her she’s amazing because she’s got a gift for focusing on everything she hasn’t been able to bring to fruition or completion. We should all fail at her rates of success!
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Snarkworth said on December 10, 2015 at 10:26 am
Brian, that’s cute! When children produce these phonetic mispronunciations, it’s a good sign — they’re reading independently.
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Judybusy said on December 10, 2015 at 10:36 am
Deb T., if you’re reading, truly great work. Professionally, I am a social worker and I volunteer on the board of an organization that does housing and services, so I have an inkling of how amazing you are! We just opened a 36 unit apartment building, and people are moving in 2-3 per week from situations of long-term homelessness. The work you do transforms lives.
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alex said on December 10, 2015 at 10:41 am
Congratulations to Jeff’s colleague Deb!
And Brian, what strikes me most about “Luckily” is that within our own lifetimes Lucille has gone from a relatively common name to total obscurity. Of course, I was surprised when everyone started naming their daughters Emma because it was such an old-lady kind of name before it wasn’t.
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Danny said on December 10, 2015 at 10:47 am
Just click this link. Trust me, it’ll make your day…
http://www.hlntv.com/shows/the-daily-share/articles/2015/12/08/toddler-tells-siri-she-loves-her-siri-responds?cid=H57183a10
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Connie said on December 10, 2015 at 10:57 am
Brian, at 17 I auditioned for a play and in my reading mispronounced “Penelope” to rhyme with antelope. I had no idea, I had only read not heard that word. It was embarrassing.
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Sue said on December 10, 2015 at 11:21 am
To the person/people who recommended The Orphan Tsunami, I got my copies yesterday to give to my son and son-in-law. It’s an amazingly browseable book, who would think? Thanks.
I think the boys will say “Um… thanks?” when they get it but I’ll tell them History! Science! Also stay away from the Pacific Northwest!
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coozledad said on December 10, 2015 at 12:41 pm
Some people look at this woman and say, “Man, that’s fucked up.” I see her as Margaret White in CARRIE-THE MUSICAL!
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/busted-trump-loving-republican-lawmaker-caught-lying-in-unhinged-rant-about-obamas-lies/
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beb said on December 10, 2015 at 12:45 pm
Are wee still doing book recommendations? I would recommend anything by E. D. Baker. She writes fairy tales featuring teen-age girls but some, like The Frog Princess or The Wide-Awake Princess have enough action going on that boy might enjoy it to. I bought The Frog Princess for my daughter to read but she wasn’t interested. So I read it, and been reading Baker ever since.
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coozledad said on December 10, 2015 at 1:02 pm
Shut it down, sell the bricks, and salt the earth it was built on:
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/citadel-military-college-cadets-caught-wearing-kkk-hoods-while-singing-christmas-carols/
Nikki Haley should go on TV and cry some, for Jesus.
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Judybusy said on December 10, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Oh, I am putting The Orphan Tsunami on my to-read list.
Cooz, that’s awful about the Citadel. Why people keep doing stupid stuff in this age of smartphones and the ability to document is beyond me. Chalk it up to contempt and the belief they are untouchable.
I subscribe to Natural History Magazine, and they always have a bookshelf of recs. The December one is extended for the gift-giving season. I wanted to link it here, but their website doesn’t have the current crop. There is a new book on Frederick Law Olmstead, a National Geographic book on our pristine seas (10% of the total seas are considered so); one on metamorphosis with gorgeous photos; and one on plankton with more photos and amazing facts, such as the 30-meter “sea squirt.” They also have a lot of children’s books, from beginning readers to young adult. I also learned a new word in one of the reviews–for the book on metamorphosis: “With a long-range camera and plenty of sitzfleisch, [the author] captured amazing photos of various stages of metamorphis.” Sitzfleisch, I was able to tease out, means being able to sit still for long periods of time. This was satisfyingly confirmed by a quick search. Ah, those 6 years of German study have at last paid off….and yes, I’m well aware it’s practically English!
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Dorothy said on December 10, 2015 at 1:41 pm
My daughter pointed out the window one time and said “Ooooh look at that pretty GAZZ-a-bow!” It took me a few seconds to realize she meant gah-ZEE-bow. Now we still pronounce it the way she did. I often wonder if anyone overhearing me thinks I’m a total idiot. But I truly don’t give a sh**. It’s our very own word!
Welcome to the club Deb T!! You’re in mighty excellent company – and I’m not referring to myself at all. I’m just average. But everyone else here is STUPENDOUS!!
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Sherri said on December 10, 2015 at 1:47 pm
Congratulations, Deb T.! Take a minute today to enjoy the successes before you go back to worrying about all the work still to do!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 10, 2015 at 2:00 pm
Charlotte mentioned Doug Tompkins’ death yesterday, and I was trying to figure out where he was kayaking when he got capsized and killed by hypothermia (another no-show at the court; we get up to 75% as it gets closer to Christmas…); looking at this, I can see why he and his party thought it worth a risk to get out there, and not in a high-powered tour boat:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/22/general-carrera-lake-photos_n_4640023.html
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Jakash said on December 10, 2015 at 2:04 pm
“Luckily” is hilarious, Brian. Love that anecdote, as well as Connie’s. It’s always fun (though, yes, often embarrassing) to find out that you’ve been pronouncing a word wrong in your head (or verbally) because you either never heard it, or never made the connection to the word that you’ve read many times. And Dorothy, I think making a tradition of then mispronouncing certain words because of an incident like that is a swell idea, which we’ve done, too.
Heather @9, ’cause you didn’t get a million dollars plunked down for you next to the starting blocks, perhaps?
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Sherri said on December 10, 2015 at 2:34 pm
The Confederate Naval Jack flag still hangs in the chapel at the Citadel, even though the school’s Board of Visitors voted to take it down after the Charleston shootings (but only then, and because one of the victims was an alum). The legislature has to amend the Heritage Act, and guess what? They’re sitting on their hands.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151113/PC20/151119680/many-citadel-alumni-urge-flag-x2019-s-removal-confederate-naval-jack-still-flies-in-chapel
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Sue said on December 10, 2015 at 2:36 pm
beb, have you tried Edward Eager? Younger than high school level sorry to say, and possibly dated (or timeless depending on your point of view), but his Magic series features mixed groups of boys and girls on magic adventures. Loved those books, just loved them, especially Half Magic and especially especially Seven Day Magic.
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Sherri said on December 10, 2015 at 2:53 pm
Dahlia, on the oral arguments in Fisher II that brought us the wonderful bigoted remarks from Scalia: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2015/12/fisher_v_university_of_texas_returns_to_scotus_the_justices_can_still_barely.html
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Deborah said on December 10, 2015 at 3:34 pm
My embarrassing mispronunciation was the word détente. I was definitely old enough to know better but I’d only seen it in print. I said dee-tent-Tay and someone corrected me publicly.
Little Bird has some good ones which I’ve encouraged her to share here.
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brian stouder said on December 10, 2015 at 4:38 pm
I suppose something will be at this link until about 6pm eastern time
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2553565088001/dr-ben-carson-holds-campaign-rally-in-fort-wayne-indiana/?intcmp=watchnow#sp=watch-live
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MichaelG said on December 10, 2015 at 5:15 pm
Jerry @#7. You are so right. The quote regarding the great etc Limpopo river does indeed come from Kipling’s ‘Just So Stories’. I read both the ‘Just So Stories’ and ‘Dr. Doolittle’ when I was a kid and misremembered in my dotage. Good catch.
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David C. said on December 10, 2015 at 5:54 pm
I don’t mind activists, but shouting activists do nobody any good, least of all themselves. As bad as the Detroit bankruptcy was, in other hands it could have been so much worse. Kevyn Orr probably isn’t the most popular person in Detroit, but he seemed to try to leave the city with a fighting chance. The judge seemed to do the same. The first rule of activism should be don’t give your opponents ammunition to use against you. Second should be don’t do anything to alienate your natural allies. But at least there wasn’t a drum circle. All there should be grateful for that.
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Suzanne said on December 10, 2015 at 6:08 pm
I know 2 people attending the Carson rally. Ugh. I refused to watch, although I should have in an attempt to be open minded…
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Little Bird said on December 10, 2015 at 6:14 pm
As for the words said incorrectly… In third grade I was asked to read aloud in social studies and the word “society” was there… I said sock-Itty…..
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Jolene said on December 10, 2015 at 6:25 pm
I shared Connie’s “Penelope” error. All these years later, have still only met one person with that name.
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MichaelG said on December 10, 2015 at 6:30 pm
In college I was acquainted with Penelope Chaloupka. Say it out loud. Rolls out kinda nicely.
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Deborah said on December 10, 2015 at 6:46 pm
I went to high school with 3 sisters of Greek extraction, they were named Diana, Penelope (who was mostly called Penny) and Daphne. They were absolutely gorgeous.
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Deborah said on December 10, 2015 at 6:48 pm
And Little Bird didn’t mention this one, but when she encountered the name Phoebe in print, she pronounced it Fobe and her 5th grade teacher made fun of her when she read it aloud. The guy was a total jerk.
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Dexter said on December 10, 2015 at 8:09 pm
Word pronunciation always came easy to me. When my fifth grade teacher called my favorite National Park “YOE-semmite” I just had to correct her. Hell…she never watched any cartoons? Who didn’t know Yosemite Sam? I adored that lovely woman. She had worked her way through Ball State “Teachers College” by working in a cafeteria kitchen , living on corn fritters one of her likewise-poor roommates had perfected.
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alex said on December 10, 2015 at 9:40 pm
Went to the worst attended ever firm Christmas party. Never such a skeleton crew before, no heavy hitters in attendance at all. Don’t even want to think about it but wondering who went to see Ben Carson. Well, at least we still got our cheezy Christmas ornaments and cocktail shrimp and cocktails and some extra pocket change, with which we tipped well.
I just know there’s someone out there wanting to hire a public historian. I could live without all of the Christmas fluff if 364 other days of the year I could do what I love.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 10, 2015 at 9:49 pm
Sherri, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to help someone of any background who got rushed into $30-50,000 of student loans towards a degree they do not, and arguably could not have (from a standing start where they were after HS graduation) completed — so now they have $200 to $400 or more a month coming off the top of an entry level job. I heard Scalia speaking to that circumstance, which may be resolved simply by making community college free (Sen. Sanders’ & Pres. Obama’s plan, which is essentially in the direction of what Scalia was suggesting) but it isn’t really solved by declaring all student loan debt forgiven beyond $50,000, another proposal floated by Sen. Warren. The point is that if you have not been properly prepared for college by your curriculum or course selection or any other influence through your senior high years, there’s a limit to how much in-school remediation can bootstrap you, even with the best will in the world. And you shouldn’t pay a gross $40,000 in the first year for almost all remediation level classes.
Defending Scalia isn’t my idea of a Thursday evening fun time, but I’ve been working here for years on promoting the heck out of community college and branch campus paths as good ways forward, not a waste of time as too many assume. Here, too many still say it’s “Columbus or bust,” when in fact two years of solid progress at a satellite campus like OSU-Newark just about guarantees entry to main campus, and the success rate of completion for that path is excellent. The failure rate of marginally ready students going directly to the Columbus campus is a big part of why the funding was boosted to the “branch” campuses, and they are proving their worth — but even there, some students need to start with a COTC associate program to get their academic skills assembled. But my experience with all this is more with Appalachian first-gen kids more than minority students. I’m sure much is lost in translation, but they seem parallel in parts.
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Sherri said on December 10, 2015 at 10:19 pm
Jeff(tmmo), sorry, I’m not buying that as Scalia’s argument, especially given his remarks about African American scientists not coming from schools like the University of Texas but from lower tier schools. Scalia was referring to an amicus brief that was referring to the “mismatch” theory promulgated by Richard Sanders from UCLA in a controversial study that has been criticized for its methodology. Another amicus brief was filed directly countering this study, but Scalia isn’t interested in that, of course.
I find it interesting that conservatives are all about how important it is to hold minority kids to high standards when they’re in the public school system, but when college comes around, now suddenly it’s maybe they should go somewhere easier. In the former case, if the high standards are applied in the minority kids’ schools, then nothing has to be done about the de facto segregation of the public school system we have today, and the scarce resources don’t have to be shared. In the latter case, because they haven’t been prepared despite the high standards, the scarce resources of the spots at top tier universities don’t have to be shared, either. Clever.
I don’t want students taking on unnecessary debt in pursuit of a degree either, but that’s not relevant to the case in Fisher. I’ll again recommend the excellent Amicus podcast episode on this case, which provides a lot of context about this case, which is up before the Supreme Court for the second time.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 10, 2015 at 10:32 pm
The public school system’s failures in unequal delivery are probably the heart of the problem; I certainly see that here, where there are huge disparities in the student experience depending on which of eleven districts you live in, let alone the economics of the particular zip code. I admit to knowing very little about the problems of large urban school districts, but I’m betting they have many of the same obstacles built into the process our poorer districts do, times three.
I’ll check out the podcast, thanks for the tip. I’m not wanting to defend Scalia wholesale, from what I’m piecing together, but the NYT & WaPo pieces make it sound like it’s all about the difference between a C at a Harvard vs. an A at Succotash State, when the problem as I’m running into it is no degree and debt, vs. any degree with any GPA. Grade point doesn’t matter a whit 30 minutes after your first job following commencement. So getting first gen students in general, and minority students in particular, into the best setting possible, is good for them, and diversity is good for the whole student body — that’s beyond doubt. I’m just not sure Scalia was condemning diversity per se, just that he was reversing the telescope and saying that diversity is not enough reason to shove a student into the wrong setting for them. I may be doing him too much credit to infer “if that means they won’t graduate.”
I was just talking to a fellow at my church last night who is ten years older than me, but he heard at OSU in 67 what I heard at Purdue in 77, said almost proudly by a dean to the entering class assembled: “Look at the person on your right, and the one on your left — only one of the three of you is going to graduate in four years.” And I had no idea that I would be one of the two, as it turned out! (It took me 6.5 years with a digression into the USMC to get a degree.) Today, administrators would neither want to say, nor would they happily say that their retention rate was 30%. The goal for all of them, state and private, is to hit 90%-plus of first year retention. But that sure was not the case for my friend, or me — they bragged about flunking out those not ready. It was a defining characteristic for colleges that recently. They’ve come a long way.
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Jill said on December 10, 2015 at 10:57 pm
Great work, Deb! I’ve been volunteering teaching homeless people who are in transitional housing for 20+ years and it always gives me hope to hear about people like you who are really making a difference.
Connie, I had the same issue with Penelope as a kid. I learned to read pretty early (apropos of the discussion earlier this week) but my expanding vocabulary didn’t always get used out loud. The other word I remember mispronouncing was epitome, which I thought was pronounced ep-i-toam.
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MichaelG said on December 11, 2015 at 12:08 am
What Jeff at #40 is articulating is the classic sales pitch for the community college system and I’m buying 100%. So you didn’t get into Ace State the first time around. Spend two years at Dog Bone Community College and try again. That’s a large part of what the CC system was designed for in the first place. And you still have your first class degree. But sorry, I’m not letting Scalia off the hook. Screw trying to spin this and take it at face value as he said it. He’s a racist.
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beb said on December 11, 2015 at 12:16 am
When I was young I read a story where one of the characters made a “hot dental.” At least that’s how it looked to me. I was old enough to know that that was wrong. It was a while before I realized that the was “denial.” I had misread the i as a t.
Sue, Edward Eager sounds interesting. I suspect I’d have to go on the used book market to find a copy. On the matter of bestselling books which aren’t that good. Rick Riordan has been pooping out books like a man with diarrhea. I tried reading a trilogy based on Egyptian mythology. For some reason I bought all three books but was only able to make it through one. Clive Cussler was another bestseller that I found barely literate. How do people with such weak storytelling skills end up as bestsellers?
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