Sunrise 19 Feb 2008
“Not with a bang, but a whimper. . . ”
That tiny tiny bright speck you see is the sun fighting to shine through the clouds. It was only there for one brief moment – then gone! Maybe we will have rain today?
The gasp of brightness brought to mind T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Hollow Men (by clicking on the blue hypertext, you can go to a great website where it explains all the references in the poem.) Although it was written in 1925 – almost a century ago – it has a very modern feel to it. Your challenge for today – read the poem. Those with more time or interest – go to the website and read the references.:
The Hollow Men
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Just Bad English
I am adding a new catagory today called Just Bad English.
No, I am not going to troll your blogs looking for grammar mistakes or misspellings or unusual use of English. I have noticed that I am blogging in English, and that many of the Kuwaiti bloggers are blogging in their second language – that is tough enough without the Language Police lurking in the background, and that’s not my point, nor my interest.
If, however, you are writing for a newspaper, you are held to a higher standard, even if English is not your native tongue.
So tell me, in this article from the Arab Times Kuwait Crime News, how many people were arrested? What were they arrested for?
Meanwhile, a team of securitymen has launched a surprise inspection campaign in Ahmadi resulting in the arrest of two Kuwaitis wanted by law for various criminal charges and 105 jobless expatriates. The arrested individuals were referred to the concerned authorities.
I have another complaint. In the Kuwait Times, we often read of the police “suspecting” a car and pulling it over, or
“suspecting” some individuals and chasing them.
We don’t use “suspecting” that way.
There is suspicious behavior. People are suspected OF something – you can’t just look at a car and “suspect” it, you have to suspect it OF something – erratic driving? What made the police suspicious?
examples of good usage:
Police suspected him of being under the influence of drugs, and pulled him over.
He looked nervous, and police suspected him of being an illegal resident, so they asked to see his papers.
Police received a tip that a brothel was operating in Farwaniya, and based on that suspicion, raided the apartment, breaking down two iron doors in the process which gave the occupants enough time to escape through a hidden hatch in the back of the apartment.
A sharp eyes policeman spotted the car, which appeared to be one stolen a few nights previously. Suspicious that the driver was not the legal owner, they stopped him and interrogated him, and demanded to see his registration and residency papers.
(I made up all the above. Any resemblance to a case you may know is purely coincidental.)
I have also noticed that almost every suspect gives up his drug accomplices, pimp, fellow thieves, smugglers and drug stash after interrogation. I suspect Kuwait police have some extensive experience in encouraging these confessions. Most of these confessions seem to result in other valid arrests. Sometimes, I can believe, these confessions are made by people who are very very afraid. On the other hand, sometimes a confession elicited by fear of a lot of pain might be totally false.
How do you know the difference? What if someone experiences a lot of pain and confesses to a crime they did NOT commit? This means that an innocent man suffers and the one who committed the crime skates. This happens in every country in the world. (That is just a rant, not a language criticism, just a general question in my mind; how do we protect the innocent?)
Smart Mouth Jokes
These jokes were sent in by a faithful reader. Honestly, I debated with myself, but I was laughing so hard my resistance was low. Here they are, and thank you – you know who you are. 🙂
SMART ASS ANSWER #6
It was mealtime during a flight on American Airlines.
“Would you like dinner?” the flight attendant asked John, seated in front.
“What are my choices?” John asked.
“Yes or no,” she replied.
SMART ASS ANSWER #5
A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check tickets.
As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket and he opened his trench coat and flashed her.
Without missing a beat, she said, “Sir, I need to see your ticket not your stub.”
SMART ASS ANSWER #4
A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but she couldn ‘ t find one big enough for her family.
She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?”
The stock boy replied, “No ma ‘ am, they ‘ re dead.”
SMART ASS ANSWER #3
The cop got out of his car and the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window.
“I ‘ve been waiting for you all day,” the cop said.
The kid replied, “Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could.”
When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket
SMART ASS ANSWER #2
A truck driver was driving along on the freeway.
A sign comes up that reads, “Low Bridge Ahead”
Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge.
Cars are backed up for miles.
Finally, a police car comes up.
The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, “Got stuck, huh?”
The truck driver says, “No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of gas.”
SMART ASS ANSWER OF THE YEAR 2007:
A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow’s final exam.
“Now class, I won ‘ t tolerate any excuses for you not being here tomorrow. I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury, illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that’s it, no other excuses whatsoever!”
A smart-ass guy in the back of the room raised his hand and asked, “What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?”
The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering.
When silence is restored, the teacher smiles knowingly at the student, shakes her head and sweetly says, “Well, I guess you’d have to write the exam with your other hand.”
Hegemony
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Hegemony:
Hegemony (pronounced [hÉ™.ˈdÊ’e.mÉ™.ni (Amer.), hɪ.ˈɡe.mÉ™.ni (Brit.)])[1] (Greek: ἡγεμονία hÄ“gemonÃa) is a concept that has been used to describe the existence of dominance of one social group over another, such that the ruling group—referred to as a hegemon—acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as opposed to dominance purely by force.[2] It is used broadly to mean any kind of dominance, and narrowly to refer to specifically cultural and non-military dominance, as opposed to the related notions of empire and suzerainty.
The processes by which a dominant culture maintains its dominant position: for example, the use of institutions to formalize power; the employment of a bureaucracy to make power seem abstract (and, therefore, not attached to any one individual); the inculcation of the populace in the ideals of the hegomonic group through education, advertising, publication, etc.; the mobilization of a police force as well as military personnel to subdue opposition.
If you want to learn more, you can read the complete article at Wikipedia on Hegemony.
Niemoeller and “When They Came for Me. . . “
Today’s quote from A.Word.A.Day:
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b.1928)
When I read this quote, I was reminded of Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s poem about Nazi Germany, “When They Came For Me:”
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
We are all by nature cowards. We take the easy way out, we look the other way, we tell ourselves “later” I will do this or that, “later” I will get involved. When our nations and our character slide into the dumps, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
But / And
Several years ago I was working for a charismatic leader. He was amazing, he built something out of nothing, and changed countless lives. I felt very privileged to be a part of his team.
I managed a particular program for him, and I raised money for college scholarships so that poor kids, who were smart but had very small chance of going on to university without outside help, would have the promise of a full-tuition paid scholarship if they kept their grades up, stayed drug free, attended cultural events for which we provided free tickets, donated by our very generous sponsors (museums! baseball games! fishing trips! opera! symphony! our sponsors were SO generous!)
From this leader I learned many things, and one sticks with me in my daily life – using “and” instead of “but.”
Here is what he explained to me – when you reply with “but”, you are negating what the previous speaker – or even you, yourself – said. When you use “and” instead of “but”, you open up the possibility of two different things co-existing.
I challenge you to try it.
It will change your life.
Eliminate “but” from your vocabulary. Replace it with “and.” It opens an amazing new world.
Here is an example:
“She wants to go to the mall, but I want to go to the movies.” (Implies that these things are mutually exclusive)
“She wants to go to the mall, and I want to go to the movies.” (Implies we can do both!)
“And” gives room for negotiation, for finding a bigger frame that includes all the wants and needs, with a little co-operation.
I challenge YOU to give it a try. Give it a try for just one day – see how it works. Come back here and tell us how it worked for you.
Ayam Zakat
My niece, Little Diamond in a comment on a previous post reminded me of the “cat containment center,” also called the cat house, that the Qatteri Cat once inhabited so that he could spend time in the garden when we weren’t outside. It had three levels he could climb up to and sleep on, and a long run to the exit. He didn’t like being contained, but he liked being outdoors enough to put up with it.
Little Diamond helped me put it together when it arrived. Little Diamond has a great big brain, she can find anything on the internet in four seconds flat, including all the lyrics to Put the Lime in the Coconut. All we have to do is mention wanting to know something, and she finds it. She also forwards all kinds of fascinating reading for me. She is SMART.
She is not so smart about putting things together. Like she said we didn’t need to look at the instructions, which were sort of in Chinese anyway, but I am a read the instructons kind of woman. Our first try was not so good. We had to resort to looking at the instructions. We finally got it together, but it never was quite right. It worked, however, well enough.
It even had a flag for the top.
Little Diamond speaks Arabic fluently. I only stumble around, but you know how when you are learning a language there are words that sound like other words, or you make jokes about the language that would make no sense to the people speaking that language but make perfect sense to the learner? (I have heard that the English word “unique” will send you into gales of laughter). Little Diamond and Adventure Man love puns, especially in Arabic. We can be rolling on the floor over things that will make YOU native Arabic speaker roll your eyes.
“On the flag” suggested Little Diamond, with a perfectly straight face, “we need to write ‘Ayam Zakat'”! and then we both laughed so hard we rolled on the grass with tears in our eyes, howling with laughter.
In Arabic, Ayam Zakat makes no sense at all. Ayam means something like times and zakat is charity. When you say it in English, however . . . it is the perfect flag for the Qatteri Cat’s house.
You can find the Cat Containment Center (condo) and all kinds of other items for entertaining and transporting cats at Midnight Pass/Kittywalk
Laughter is the Best Weapon
I just heard this quote on Good Morning America as they are discussing how Hilary Clinton laughs to disarm her critics and opponents:
The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. Mark Twain.
Good old Mark Twain! That cagey old cynic said some great things. I found this wonderful web page: Brainy Quotes: Mark Twain
Here are some that I just love. Take a look and see what YOU like.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
We have the best government that money can buy.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Lexiograms
My friend KitKat is on a roll. She knows how much I love words and puns and groaners (jokes so bad they make you groan because you don’t see ’em coming). Thank you, KitKat!
Lexiograms
1. A bicycle can’t stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
5. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
6. If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
7. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
8. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
9. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
10. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
11. He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
12. A lot of money is tainted. ‘Taint yours and ‘taint mine.
13. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
14. He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
15. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
16. When you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.
17. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
18. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
19. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
20. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.
Ramadan Futoor
I was invited to a friend’s for Iftar the other day. We played, and as the day lengthened, she napped while I read. Her husband came down yelling “get up! get up! It’s almost time!” and had the radio on so we could hear the sound of the cannon, announcing the end of the day’s fasting.
We had water and dates, and then soup. Because these are dear friends, and because they love me, we also had Kuwaiti fish!
It was stuffed with parsley, onions and garlic, oh WOW. It was delicious.
As we ate, they were telling me about the thin thin pancakes you can buy at this time of the year to make a special stew. They are made on a dome shaped pan, with a very liquid dough, and evidently you can buy them at the co-op or along the side of the road (I have got to find one of these women!) because the thin pancake you can get during Ramadan is very close, I think, to the brik skin that you use for the Tuna Tunisienne which, hmmmmmm, could also be made with just about any leftover fish.
You have to be quick, because the dough is so fragile. While the photo shows all the ends tucked in, I was never that good, and neither are most Tunisiens – most of the brik I ate in Tunisia were all just folded over and fried in olive oil. So you have to have the oil hot before you put the brik in, and it sizzles, but it can’t be too hot because it has to cook long enough to cook the egg (if you add egg) or to heat the tuna through. Ohhhh, yummmm!
I was also asking about Swair’s Ramadan Soft Dumplings / Lgaimat and they were laughing and telling me how hard they are to make well, and that you have to eat them all the same day they are made, they are so fragile.
Later in the meal, as they were showing me low to roll the rice and fish into a ball together and pop it into your mouth in the old gulf way, my host mentioned the act of making that ball is called “ligma” and – – – ta da! it is the same root as Swair’s lgaimat!
I don’t know about you, but making a connection like that is like having a big light go on in my head. I love it. I can’t always remember words correctly unless I write them down, but this one – making balls to pop in your mouth/ making sweet dumplings balls – don’tcha just love it when things come together like that?
(I am posting this early in the day because you won’t feel hungry for fish this early if you are fasting – I hope – and it might give you a good idea for tonight’s Futoor!) Ramadan kareem!
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Abou Tabblouleh on t… on Waiting for Snow Abou Tabbouleh on in… on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 