Sunday, April 11, 2021

Many Mickles Make a Muckle


Nothing in nature is more true—
"many mickles make a muckle."

— George Washington

In a post last May—when the lockdown was novel—I asked: What possible good can come from Covid-19?

My answer asserted that the virus was an "ugly duckling" from which would emerge a new normal "prettier than we ever imagined." As proof, I predicted:
  • The environment would refresh itself
  • The planet's animals would reassert themselves
  • Parents would rediscover their children—and vice versa
  • Neighbors would reach out to neighbors
  • People would rediscover art, architecture, books, and bikes
  • Family members would sleep longer and eat better
  • Citizens would recognize government wasn't the enemy
Since my post in May, an additional 470 thousand Americans have died of Covid-19; and 8 million have become poor. 

But are the rest of us in a better spot? Is the new normal prettier than imagined?

Yes, I believe it is, and in a major way; because things—little things—add up.

Many mickles make a muckle.

Muckle comes from mickle, Old English for a "big deal." 

In Beowulf's time, Brits would say Grendel was a mickle; call the Justinian Plague  a mickle; or name a big village Mickle-something, as we would call New York "The Big Apple" or New Orleans "The Big Easy."

The thriftier Brits even had a proverb: "Many a pickle makes a mickle," by which they meant, "expenses add up quickly." 

The Scots, speaking of thrift, pronounced mickle as muckle. We get our word much from muckle.

George Washington, prone to mangling English, in a 1793 letter to his manager at Mount Vernon coined the proverb "Many mickles make a muckle."

The thrift-minded Washington, intending to scold the man for piling up expenses during his time away from the plantation, meant to write "Many a pickle makes a mickle," but instead wrote "Many mickles make a muckle," failing to remember the two words are synonyms, not antonyms.

Washington's confusion aside, things do add up, even little things. Especially when you're in a pickle, as we are today.

But things aren't all bad. Covid-19 has in fact ushered changes long overdue:
  • Virology and telemedicine have blossomed
  • E-commerce and white-collar productivity are booming
  • Science and distance learning are no longer gated
  • The skies and waterways are healing themselves
  • And—an unmitigated blessing—Donald Trump is history
Many a pickle makes a mickle.

Pickle by the way denotes a "wee bit." A 17th century Scottish word, pickle referred to the grain on the top of a barley stalk.

Scotsmen also pronounced pickle as puckle, a word they still use to mean "bit."

Where we'd say "I want a bit of ketchup with my fries," a Scotsman might say "I want a puckle of ketchup with my fries."

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Thoughts and Prayers


Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages.

— Ernest Hemingway

Boulder, Atlanta, Springfield, Midland, Dayton, El Paso, Gilroy, Virginia Beach, Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh, Annapolis.

Alongside these place names, the abstract words thoughts and prayers are indeed obscene (obscene, adjective, from the Latin ob ("in front of") + caenum ("filth")).

We're embarrassed to hear them any longer. As we should be.

Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms:

"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice. We had heard them and had read them now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. 

"There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages."

Let's retire thoughts and prayers. Permanently. 

We have heard them now for a long time and can no longer stand to hear them. 

They're words that have become obscene.


Friday, April 9, 2021

Voter Suppression Has My Vote


Let the rabble amuse itself by voting.

― Aldous Huxley

Right-wing columnist Kevin Williamson grabbed headlines this week by recommending "categorical" voter suppression.

"The republic would be better served by having fewer—but better—voters," he wrote.

We believe it's a mainstay, but voting is at best a "sedative," Williamson argues.

"It soothes people with the illusion that they have more control over their lives and their public affairs than they actually do," he writes.

Denying the vote to progressives and populists would get us out of the mess we're in, Williams argues. He would begin reform by raising the voting age to 30.

I'm all for categorical voter disenfranchisement, too. In fact, with Socrates, I long for a republic in which "guardians"—not mudsills—appoint philosophers to rule the state.

So to whom would I deny voting rights? Here's my Top 10 list:
  1. Inattentive parents
  2. Conspiracy theorists
  3. Overachievers
  4. Wyoming residents
  5. People who reflexively "reply all"
  6. Brand ambassadors
  7. Ayn Rand fans
  8. Incompetent Zoom users
  9. Road hogs
  10. Suze Orman
How about you? 

Does voter suppression have your vote?

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Short People


They got little hands and little eyes
And they walk around telling great big lies

— Randy Newman

"Cancel culture" isn't new.

It's been around since Dicso.

In 1977, singer-songwriter Randy Newman was cancelled for "Short People," a novelty tune that rose to Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and became a gold record.

"Short People" so enraged the thought police, it was banned from the radio in major cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston. 

A Maryland legislator introduced a bill prohibiting the song's airplay statewide.

"'Short People' has run into a wave of protest almost unique in the history of popular music," The Washington Post wrote at the time. 

The composer even received death threats. 

"Newman will be lucky if he reaches April Fool's Day without rope burns around his neck," The Post wrote.

The song, of course, was a tongue-in-cheek condemnation of bigotry; but morons took Newman's satire literally.

"His real mistake was to give this particular poem a catchy melody and a bright, upbeat arrangement that won it a lot of exposure on radio stations that specialize in brainlessness and appeal to brainless people," The Post wrote. 

"There, amid the endless jangle of disco tunes, the song stood out like a giraffe at a convention of frogs."

"They got grubby little fingers and dirty little minds," Newman's final stanza concluded. 

"They're gonna get you every time."

Monday, April 5, 2021

Breach of Trust


Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Steal a lot and they make you king.

— Bob Dylan

Shoplift a package of pencil liners, it's theft; take $600 million home from the office, it's breach of trust.

Elaine Chao, Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation and Mitch McConnell's wife, took that amount home while in office, and hardly anyone batted an eyelash.

Chao exploited her cabinet position to double the worth of her family's shipping business, from $600 million to $1.2 billion (that's half a million dollars for each day in office).

She did so primarily by using the Transportation Department to promote the firm, encouraging international shippers to choose it over competitors.

Among other things, Chao took the company's chairman—her father—on 14 overseas junkets, all at taxpayers' expense. 

While on these trips, Chao would use her staff as personal assistants, not only for herself, but her father. She would also tap her pubic affairs office to promote daddy to the local media.

Whenever Chao spoke at a maritime conference—which she did, a lot—she'd strong-arm the sponsor to give her father an award at the event, and to buy a copy of Fearless Against the Wind for every attendee. The book was a syrupy biography of her father, ghostwritten by Chao's staff—again, at taxpayers' expense.

Ironically, to fund operations, Chao's family firm borrows hundreds of millions every year from Chinese banks—banks owned by the same Communist regime Chao's boss purportedly despises.

In 2019, an inspector general launched a full investigation of Chao's criminal acts, but William Barr tabled the recommendation to prosecute Chao the morning it was received. And because Trump couldn't, Mitch McConnell fired the inspector general that afternoon.

In an interview last week, Walter Shaub, former head of the Office of Government Ethics, told AlterNet, "This is the kind of thing you would use in a training class to teach government officials what misuse of a position looks like."

Meantime, the Tennessee supreme court has handed one Abbie Welch a six-year prison sentence for shoplifting from Walmart. 

The court's ruling makes no mention of the item she stole.

Probably a package of pencil liners.
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