Tag: ABC Wednesday

K is for Known As, Formerly

What changes in nomenclature have YOU noticed in your lifetime?

The Artist Formerly Known As PrinceI’m always interested in things that used to be called something else.

Retronyms are words that evolve because technology changes. There used to be things called guitars; then electric guitars were invented, so guitars became acoustic guitars. Clocks became analog clocks when digital clocks came on the scene. Before minicomputers appeared in the 1970s, all computers were what are now called mainframe computers.

Then there are political reasons for change. “Even old New York was once New Amsterdam, ” the song ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople)’ tells us; there are thousands of changes like this; in my lifetime, many took place in Africa with decolonization. After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Idlewild Airport became JFK; Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy, but, interestingly, changed back!

One singer changed his name from Prince to the glyph above back to Prince, which is way easier to say. Did you know the actor Albert Brooks’ given name was Albert Einstein? People change their names for all sorts of reasons – convenience, religious purposes (Lew Alcindor to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, for one).

Racial/ethnic designations seem often to be in flux. Is it American Indian or Native American or First Nation? People in my lifetime used to actually refer to people with Down’s syndrome as Mongolian idiots, which managed to be both racist and inaccurate all at once.

Changes in the workplace mean that planes have flight attendants, not stewardesses. Similarly, there are firefighters and police officers instead of firemen and policemen.

Do not underestimate the power of commerce to change words. In the old days, there were used car salesmen, who were among the least trusted people in the US because of their shenanigans, such as fixing odometers. Now there are no used cars in the nation; they are now “pre-owned vehicles.”

How do you sell dolls to boys? Why you call them action figures. That’s what Hasbro did in 1964 with the introduction of the GI Joe doll action figure.

Every time I hear the phrase “window treatment,” I think someone is going to tint the glass or something. In fact, that’s the term for shades, drapes, and the like.

What changes in nomenclature have YOU noticed in your lifetime?


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

J is for Jesus

There are lots of examples how Jesus was hardly passive, thus clearly inspiring the nonviolent direct action of Martin Luther King Jr and others.

As I have noted, I’ve been reading – very slowly – a book by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President. The subtitle is Politics for Ordinary Radicals. The title had concerned me what it might be promulgated, but that turned out not to be a worry. The book is coming from a Christian POV, but not a traditional one.

Jesus for President shows the political backdrop in the early first century and how subversive Jesus was. “Jesus spoke about a throne, and Herod wasn’t on it… His campaign slogan was ‘Jubilee,'” a topic I’ve addressed recently. Here is a brief video of Claiborne [LISTEN].

The book has a lot to say about war and the environment and patriotism, and I hope you read it. Certainly, in the case of the latter, it spurned my post about the American flag. But let me give you just a taste.

I had the profoundly great opportunity to see the late author Walter Wink speak about a decade ago, and his reflection about “Jesus’ creativity in his teaching” was amazing. Claiborne and Haw write about him at length.

In turning the other cheek (Matthew 38-42), “Jesus was not suggesting that we let people sadistically step all over us. When hit on the cheek, turn and look the person in the eye. In the orderly Jewish culture a person would only hit someone only with the right hand… if you hit a person with the left hand, you could be banished for ten days…”

“When someone drags you before the court to sue you for the coat off your back, take off all your clothes, exposing the sickness of their greed… ‘You can even have my undies. But you cannot have my soul or my dignity.’

“When someone makes you walk a mile with them, go with them another mile… Roman law specified that civilians had to walk none mile but that’s all…” The soldier could get in a bit of trouble if someone literally went the extra mile for them.

There are lots of examples of how Jesus was hardly passive, thus clearly inspiring the nonviolent direct action of Martin Luther King Jr and others.

I previously discussed Zealot by Reza Aslan, who is a Muslim. I find it interesting that these two books, even though they come from very different angles, are clearly saying that one has to understand the context of Jesus’ time on earth to really understand parts of the message. From what I know, it’s clear in both books that Jesus was a troublemaker, showed antipathy for the earthly authorities that oppressed people, and was most definitely not a wuss.
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Notes on Jesus II. Daniel Nester’s recollections of being an altar boy.

 


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

I is for Inherently good?

“But if babies have positive feelings for the similar puppet, do they actually have negative feelings for the one who’s different?”

Watching CBS News 60 Minutes this summer, I noted that they repeated a story Born good? Babies help unlock the origins of morality. I found it fascinating, as I watched it for a second time.

“It’s a question people have asked for as long as there have been people: are human beings inherently good? Are we born with a sense of morality or do we arrive blank slates, waiting for the world to teach us right from wrong?”

There were a series of experiments done on children six months old at a clinic associated with Yale University: “In offering babies this seemingly small, innocuous choice — graham crackers or Cheerios — [researcher Karen] Wynn is probing something big: the origins of bias. The tendency to prefer others who are similar to ourselves.

“So will [baby] Nate, who chose Cheerios over graham crackers, prefer this orange cat, who also likes Cheerios — over the grey cat who likes graham crackers instead? Apparently so.

“But if babies have positive feelings for the similar puppet, do they actually have negative feelings for the one who’s different? To find out, Wynn showed babies the grey cat — the one who liked the opposite food, struggling to open up the box to get a toy. Will Gregory here want to see the graham cracker eater treated well? Or does he want him treated badly? Gregory seemed to want the different puppet treated badly.”

Reporter Lesley Stahl notes that the child went with his bias.

“And so did Nate and 87 percent of the other babies tested. From this Wynn concludes that infants prefer those ‘who harm… others’ who are unlike them.”

I can’t help but wonder if most people, including adults, react similarly, depending on whether they relate to different individuals in a dispute.

But there are also positive outcomes in this study. Especially as children get older, altruism develops, a sense of fairness.

Here is the video, and here’s a bonus feature, Is your child fair when no one is watching?


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

G is for Gadsden Purchase

James Gadsden was a lieutenant from South Carolina who wanted to expand slavery westward into California, perhaps by splitting the state into two, one slave, one free.


I swear I went to bed one night, wondering, “What should I write about for the letter G?” Then I woke up in the morning thinking about the Gadsden Purchase.

Say what?

You can see from the map above that the western expansion of the United States had already been achieved by the time the US purchased this relatively small section of the country, shown in orange. After the Revolutionary War, the US territory reached the Mississippi River. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the landmass. Florida was acquired in 1819 from Florida.

Getting Texas, the Oregon Territory from the British, and fighting the Mexican War, all in the 1840s, achieved what many at the time called the United States’ Manifest Destiny, expounded by, among others, John Quincy Adams:
“The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union.”

If the US ran “from sea to shining sea,” then why the acquisition of the Gadsden Purchase? “It was largely for the purpose that the US might construct a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route [which was not built]. It also aimed to reconcile outstanding border issues between the US and Mexico following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War of 1846–48 … [it was] thought the topography of the southern portion of the Mexican Cession was too mountainous [to build a railroad]…”

Franklin Pierce was President when the treaty was signed on December 30, 1853, and ratified, with changes, by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 1854. A huge supporter of the agreement was his Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who later became President of the Confederacy.

James Gadsden, BTW, was an army officer from South Carolina, a railroad official, and eventually the American ambassador to Mexico, who wanted to expand slavery westward into California, perhaps by splitting the state into two, perhaps at 36°30′ north, one slave, one free. “Gadsden considered slavery ‘a social blessing’ and abolitionists ‘the greatest curse of the nation.'” The politics surrounding the acquisition, which some parties wanted to include much more of present-day Mexico, is a largely unknown precursor to the American Civil War.

The Gadsden Purchase was the final piece of what became the first 48 states of the Union, with only Alaska (1867) and Hawaii (1898) to follow.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

F is for Friends

How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicating this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they?

A few weeks ago, Daniel Nester wrote about Ex-Friends, which got me thinking about my own friendships. I can’t think of a current ex-friend, someone who was once my friend but is now my enemy. I did have a good friend in college with whom I had a falling out about a decade later, but we reconnected a couple decades after that, and while we’re not in regular contact, there’s no animosity anymore.

This is not to say that I haven’t lost contact with friends. I was cleaning the attic this summer and came across a Rolodex, which, for you youngsters, is a device on which one hand-printed people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. There was room for fax numbers too, but cellphones and e-mails weren’t around. I found names of people for whom I had great affection! How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicting this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they? My life or their lives went in other directions, perhaps with children or careers; some still live in the area, but we haven’t talked in years.

Some move away, of course, or I have. But I have two friends from kindergarten who, though they are in New York City and in Austin, Texas, are still among my best friends. Likewise a friend from the first day in college.

Sometimes you rediscover people you knew on Facebook and discover that they are almost exactly like they used to be, which is not exactly a compliment. Whereas others have progressed in their lives in a way consistent with the interests and values they were showing when I first met them; they are worth keeping in touch with.

As I have indicated before, I think it’s possible to have friends on the Internet that you have never met; you know who you are!

Here is the title song of the Beach Boys’ 14th studio album [LISTEN].


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

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