"Beds of Bronzing As Harmful as the Tobacco"

La Tribune, a newspaper written in French, apparently turned to Babelfish to translate text for the English web version of its headlines. Click on the link above for more unintentional hilarity...

I think Babelfish may be the source for my other favorite French mistranslation. The wages-of-adultery film Unfaithful, which starred Diane Lane, Richard Gere, and Oliver Martinez, showed up in a French review as...Inaccurate. Thou shalt not commit inaccuracy might have to be the 11th commandment.

Here's something bronze, burning and tobacco related:

Gratitude Journal: A Singular Entry

This week I have been cleared by my neurophysiologist to teach after possible strokes. From January through April 2009, I had at least 4 episodes that I thought were due to extreme fatigue but were in retrospect probably TIAs (mini strokes). On Memorial Day I had what Fred Sanford would call "The Big One, Elizabeth!" I was hospitalized for 5 days in the cardiac/neuro ward. Nothing showed up on my MRI, MRA, or CT to document strokes, but I had extreme weakness, trouble with speech, moving the right side of my body and using some fingers of my left hand. I also had (and still have to a minute degree) problems with language and concentration. I've worked really hard for the last 2 months to improve my speech, concentration, and physical health to get better. I can now read and concentrate for 3 hours at a time, which is less than half of what I could do before, but it's much much better. I didn't lose any written (reading or writing) skills except for lingering over a word sometimes--and I don't think that's a disadvantage for a poet.

I'm looking forward to reading and writing more in August. That's my vow--read more, walk more, and start to write again.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity.
BEST BOOKS THIS YEAR: Leslie Harrison's Displacement, Jericho Brown's Please

LOOKING FORWARD TO READING: Holly Goddard Jones' Girl Trouble (Harper Collins, short stories), Nicky Beer's The Diminishing House (Carnegie Mellon, poems)

Profiling in Massachusetts: Scholar Arrested

BOSTON (Reuters) - Authorities in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Tuesday dropped disorderly conduct charges against a preeminent black scholar stemming from an incident that drew fresh attention to police treatment of minorities in the United States.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his home in the Boston suburb of Cambridge last Thursday by a white police officer after a woman called police to report that a man was trying to force his way into the house.

Gates, 58, had merely experienced difficulty opening his own front door after returning from a trip to China, according to his lawyer. But police said Gates exhibited "loud and tumultuous behavior," including accusing police of racism.

A statement on the Cambridge police department's Web site said, "The City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Police Department, and Professor Gates acknowledge that the incident of July 16, 2009 was regrettable and unfortunate."

"This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department," the statement said, adding that the charges were dropped.

Gates is the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African & African American Research and is one of the most prominent black scholars in the United States.

The incident renewed a debate over "racial profiling" and whether police in the United States treat blacks and other minorities differently than whites -- even after the election of the first black U.S. president in Barack Obama.

"I'm outraged that this could happen to me in my own home but I'm outraged that it could happen to any individual," Gates said in an interview with the Washington Post.

Gates, who is seeking an apology, called the incident "deeply painful and traumatic," and told the newspaper he would use it as the basis for a documentary on "racial profiling."

A statement from his lawyer, Charles Ogletree, released on Monday said Gates had been unable to enter his damaged front door after returning home from a trip to China. Ogletree, also a Harvard professor, said Gates managed to enter the house through the rear door, and his driver carried in his luggage.

After police arrived at the house, Ogletree said, Gates showed his Harvard identification and driver's license, and asked the policeman for his name and badge number. The police officer walked away, and when Gates followed him to the porch, he was arrested, Ogletree's statement said.

A police report said Gates initially refused to provide identification and after the officer explained he was investigating a reported break-in, shouted "this is what happens to black men in America."

The report said Gates made threats against the policeman, then followed the officer outside and yelled at him. He was then arrested.

(Reporting by Jason Szep and JoAnne Allen; Editing by Stacey Joyce and Will Dunham)
_________________
Although other articles, including one in the Christian Science Monitor, have presented the police department's point of view of this event as a "tempest in a teapot," I really think this is an example of racial profiling. I question:

1. Why wouldn't the officer provide his name and badge number? Doesn't that violate some sort of law?

2. Why wouldn't the officer apologize and leave as soon as he was shown identification proving that Professor Gates was standing in his own home?

3. Is it against the law to protest police presence in one's own home?

4. Isn't it part of a police officer's training to decrease, rather than increase, the tension in a situation?

Incidentally, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a law against racial profiling.

(photo above taken by one of Gates' neighbors at the time of his arrest)

Today in History: Romanticism and "Tintern Abbey Lines"

July 13, 1798
Wordsworth visits Tintern Abbey

While on a walking tour, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visit a ruined church called Tintern Abbey.

The ruins inspired Wordsworth's poem "Tintern Abbey," in which Wordsworth articulated some of the fundamental themes of Romantic poetry, including the restorative power of nature. The poem appeared in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems in 1798, which Wordsworth collaborated on with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The book, which also included Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, sold out within two years. The book's second edition included an important preface that articulated the Romantic manifesto.

Wordsworth was born near England's Lake District in 1770. He lost his mother when he was eight, and his father died five years later. Wordsworth attended Cambridge, then traveled in Europe, taking long walking tours with friends through the mountains. During his 20s, Wordsworth lived with his sister Dorothy and became close friends with Coleridge.

In 1802, after years of living on a modest income, Wordsworth came into a long-delayed inheritance from his father and was able to live comfortably with his sister. He married their longtime neighbor Mary Hutchinson and had five children. The poet's stature grew steadily, although most of his major work was written by 1807. In 1843, he was named poet laureate of England, and he died in 1850, at the age of 80.

This Day in History: July 9, 1948 and 1957

July 9, 1948--Satchel Paige makes debut with Cleveland Indians

On this day in 1948, 42-year-old Leroy "Satchel" Paige pitches two innings for the Cleveland Indians in his debut with the newly--and barely--integrated American League. The game came 21 years after the great pitcher’s first Negro League appearance.

Leroy Page was born on July 7, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama. Page’s family changed the spelling of their name to Paige to differentiate themselves from John Page, Leroy’s absent and abusive father. "Satchel" got his nickname as a boy while working as a luggage carrier at the Mobile train station. When he was 12, his constant truancy coupled with a shoplifting incident got him sent to the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama. It turned out to be a lucky break, as it was there that Paige learned to pitch. After leaving the school, he turned pro.

From 1927 to 1948 Satchel Paige was the baseball equivalent of a hired gun: He pitched for any team in the United States or abroad that could afford him. He was the highest paid pitcher of his time, and he wowed crowds with the speed of his fastball, his trick pitches and his considerable bravado. Just for fun, Paige would sometimes call in his outfield and then strike out the side. From 1939 to 1942, the Kansas City Monarchs paid up for his services and were justly rewarded: Paige led the team to four consecutive Negro American League pennants from 1939 to 1942. In the 1942 Negro League World Series, Satchel won three games in a four-game sweep of the Homestead Grays, led by famed slugger Josh Gibson.

Paige’s contract was bought by Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians on July 7, 1948, his 42nd birthday. He made his major league debut two days later, entering in the fifth inning against the St. Louis Browns with the Indians trailing 4-1. He gave up two singles in two innings, striking one man out and inducing one batter to hit into a double play. The Indians lost the game 5-3 in spite of Paige’s contribution. That year Satchel Paige went 6-1 with a solid 2.48 ERA for the World Champion Cleveland Indians.

Paige was named to Major League Baseball’s All-Star Team for the American League in 1952 and 1953, when he was 46 and 47 years old respectively. In 1965, Paige pitched for the Kansas City Athletics, which made him, at 59 years, 2 months and 18 days, the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues. Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

________________
Today's my birthday, and here are some quotes from Satchel that I find extremely pertinent:

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.

Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.

I've said it once and I'll say it a a hundred times, I'm forty-four years old.

Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

Satchel Paige

Letters from a Young Composer, 1812: Ewig Dein, Ewig Mein, Ewig Uns

Morning, Monday, July 6

My angel, my all, my very self — Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) … Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be — Love demands everything and that very justly — thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. … We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life — If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you — ah — there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all — Cheer up — remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be —
Your faithful LUDWIG

Evening, Monday, July 6

Wherever I am, there you are also — I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you — pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither — which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it — Humility of man towards man — it pains me — and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He — whom we call the greatest — and yet — herein lies the divine in man — I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me — I love you more — But do not ever conceal yourself from me — good night — As I am taking the baths I must go to bed — Oh God — so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?

Good morning, on July 7

Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life — Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men — At my age I need a steady, quiet life — can that be so in our connection? Be calm — love me — today — yesterday — what tearful longings for you — you — you — my life — my all — farewell. Oh continue to love me — never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.



ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

This Day in History: The First Bikini

July 5: General Interest--1946 : Bikini introduced

On July 5, 1946, French designer Louis Reard unveils a daring two-piece swimsuit at the Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in Paris. Parisian showgirl Micheline Bernardini modeled the new fashion, which Reard dubbed "bikini," inspired by a news-making U.S. atomic test that took place off the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean earlier that week.

European women first began wearing two-piece bathing suits that consisted of a halter top and shorts in the 1930s, but only a sliver of the midriff was revealed and the navel was vigilantly covered. In the United States, the modest two-piece made its appearance during World War II, when wartime rationing of fabric saw the removal of the skirt panel and other superfluous material. Meanwhile, in Europe, fortified coastlines and Allied invasions curtailed beach life during the war, and swimsuit development, like everything else non-military, came to a standstill.

In 1946, Western Europeans joyously greeted the first war-free summer in years, and French designers came up with fashions to match the liberated mood of the people. Two French designers, Jacques Heim and Louis Reard, developed competing prototypes of the bikini. Heim called his the "atom" and advertised it as "the world's smallest bathing suit." Reard's swimsuit, which was basically a bra top and two inverted triangles of cloth connected by string, was in fact significantly smaller. Made out of a scant 30 inches of fabric, Reard promoted his creation as "smaller than the world's smallest bathing suit." Reard called his creation the bikini, named after the Bikini Atoll.

In planning the debut of his new swimsuit, Reard had trouble finding a professional model who would deign to wear the scandalously skimpy two-piece. So he turned to Micheline Bernardini, an exotic dancer at the Casino de Paris, who had no qualms about appearing nearly nude in public. As an allusion to the headlines that he knew his swimsuit would generate, he printed newspaper type across the suit that Bernardini modeled on July 5 at the Piscine Molitor. The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received some 50,000 fan letters.



Before long, bold young women in bikinis were causing a sensation along the Mediterranean coast. Spain and Italy passed measures prohibiting bikinis on public beaches but later capitulated to the changing times when the swimsuit grew into a mainstay of European beaches in the 1950s. Reard's business soared, and in advertisements he kept the bikini mystique alive by declaring that a two-piece suit wasn't a genuine bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring."

In prudish America, the bikini was successfully resisted until the early 1960s, when a new emphasis on youthful liberation brought the swimsuit en masse to U.S. beaches. It was immortalized by the pop singer Brian Hyland, who sang "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini" in 1960, by the teenage "beach blanket" movies of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, and by the California surfing culture celebrated by rock groups like the Beach Boys. Since then, the popularity of the bikini has only continued to grow.

Whirring Rubies

XV.

A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel--
A Resonance of Emerald--
A Rush of Cochineal--
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head--
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride--

Emily Dickinsonn



This is an astounding video of hummingbirds in flight, feeding fledglings in a nest, taking nectar while a man holds a flower, etc. The longer it goes, the better it gets. Don't miss the last 90 seconds!

Happy Birthday, Alice!

Happy Fourth--"American Names," Stephen Vincent Benet

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn,
But I will remember where I was born.

I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.

I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman’s Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.

Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

Mayfield Man Makes Good: The Chicken Catcher on America's Got Talent

Beautiful, heartfelt country music from a Mayfield person. Harvey and I were shopping at a local store when we read a billboard saying, "Good Luck, Chicken Catcher!" We had no idea how wonderful he'd sound. Follow the link above to hear the accent from my part of the world--love it!

Here's the article from People:

AMERICA'S GOT TALENT:
From Chicken Catcher to Country Star?
July 1, 2009

Hiding behind a backwards cap, Kevin Skinner, 35, wowed judges with his brilliant guitar playing and singing. But expectations were low when the “chicken catcher” from Mayfield, Ky., stepped out onto the America’s Got Talent stage Tuesday. He drew mostly snickers from the crowd for his folksy wit when he said he likes to hunt and fish, “take the truck muddin’,” and count the stars under the open sky.
His version of “If Tomorrow Never Comes” by Garth Brooks had such a sophisticated and tortured sound, the unemployed farmer beamed with pure talent in a Susan Boyle-like breakout moment that may not become a YouTube sensation, but is definitely worthy of top-ranking performance of the season.
Piers Morgan, who sets the tone on the judges’ panel as the cranky expert, had nothing but praise for Skinner. “There is a moment in every season and I can remember them all, where somebody comes onstage dressed like you are, and your cap is on the wrong way around, and … then you start to sing and within about 20 seconds, you had me,” he said. “By the end of it, that was one of the most emotional powerful performances I’ve seen in a long time.”
Sharon Osbourne agreed: “I thought you were going to be really hokey and silly,” she said. “But I can tell you’re a really lovely person. You’re a very genuine man.”
Skinner got his ticket to Vegas.

From Simon to Stallone: Today's Word--Petrichor

From Dr. Goodword, July 1, 2009

petrichor •

Pronunciation: pe-trê-kor • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun


Meaning: That distinctively pleasant fragrance of rain falling on dry ground. It is produced by oily, yellow-gold globules, rather like perfume, that either come from certain plants or the air itself.

Notes: This amazingly beautiful word was introduced by two Australian geologists, I. J. Bear and R. G. Thomas, in a 1964 article that appeared in Nature (993/2), referring to a rather specific aroma. However, we have all experienced the pleasure of the smell of rain against dry earth; now, we have a word to explain that pleasure. It is too young to have progeny yet, but when it reaches appropriate seniority, I predict it will produce an adjective, petrichoric.

In Play: This word certainly belongs in the vocabulary of all terroirists, "I'm certain that the bouquet of this chardonnay comes from the petrichor of the soil where the vines grew." But once we are comfortable with it, we can unleash our metaphoric creativity, "Her entrance into his life was a refreshing petrichor ending a long season of dry relationships."

Word History: It is amazing how such a beautiful word can arise from such a distasteful combination as today's extremely Good Word. It comprises the root of Greek petros "stone" + ichor, the mythical rarified fluid that flowed in the veins of the gods. (Ichor now refers to any watery discharge from a wound or inflammation.) Petros is also the Greek form of the name "Peter," which is why Jesus claimed him to be the rock on which His church would be built. So the name of the film character, Rocky, is simply a translation of the Greek Peter.

____________
I love this word! From the dry rock's and the blood of the gods, there's this phenomenal scent. It sends my mind all skimble-skamble (today's other word).

Adieu, Karl Malden (1912-2009)

This is a bad week for Gary, Indiana, natives. Malden worked in the steel mills of Gary before serving in World War II. Michael Jackson was a native of Gary.

Malden was superb in many of his roles, but it's A Streetcar Named Desire where he excelled, both on stage and on screen. He won a Tony for this role, which he originated on Broadway, and reprised it on film, winning an Acadamy Award for Best Supporting actor.

"A Room in the Past"--Ted Kooser

It’s a kitchen. Its curtains fill
with a morning light so bright
you can’t see beyond its windows
into the afternoon. A kitchen
falling through time with its things
in their places, the dishes jingling
up in the cupboard, the bucket
of drinking water rippled as if
a truck had just gone past, but that truck
was thirty years. No one’s at home
in this room. Its counter is wiped,
and the dishrag hangs from its nail,
a dry leaf. In housedresses of mist,
blue aprons of rain, my grandmother
moved through this life like a ghost,
and when she had finished her years,
she put them all back in their places
and wiped out the sink, turning her back
on the rest of us, forever.



I've linked to Kooser reading "A Room in the Past," which I find lovely and compelling. Throughout the poem, the grandmother is never presented head-on. She's seen peripherally, moving through life in housedresses of mist,/blue aprons of rain. In all of the chores that she completes--putting away the dishes, cleaning off the counters, wiping out the sink (the last thing I do when I clean my own kitchen)--her back is turned toward the rest of the family. Now that the light is bright and the room spotlit by sun, her kitchen and, by extension, her absence become more noticeable. What has defined her no longer contains her. Just as the mist is evaporated and the end of rain signaled by sun, she's quietly vanished. That metaphor of the dishrag....a dry leaf is particularly haunting to me.