Last year at this time I decided to try a new type of New Year's resolution and allow myself to choose only one word to concentrate on in 2011. The word was "Ideate" (pronounced AHY-dee-aet) which is a verb that means "to form an idea of", "to think of", "to imagine" or "to conceive of". It is synonymous with "to dream", "to envision", "to fancy", to "fantasize", "to picture", "to visualize", "to conjure up", or "to see in your mind's eye". When used in the intransitive form (without an object) and in the imperative mood (command) it means "THINK!".
As it turned out it was a good resolution and the result is that I have "conjured up" all sorts of ideas about things that I would like to do before it's time to exit this life for the next great adventure. The word that I chose to continue this train of thought for the coming year is "Update" which is, of course, a verb that means to make something that was suitable for times gone by more suitable to the present and the future by adapting it to recent ideas. It is synonymous with "improve", "correct", "renew", "revise", "upgrade", "amend", "overhaul", "streamline", "modernize", "re-brand" and "contemporize". The first known use of the word goes back to 1941 but since it is such a forward looking word its age doesn't matter. Neither does mine. Last year I was thinking of retiring this year at sixty-four but then I checked a number of actuarial tables and they all seemed to agree that in the absence of divine intervention it is highly likely that I will live as long as seventy-nine years. Heck, there is still plenty of time to accomplish something positive so I think I will keep on working and not retire until I see the moving finger write upon the wall. They say that Mr.Death can walk no faster than three miles per hour. As long as you can still walk faster than that you'll be okay. Just don't look back!
The main thing that I realized this past year is that the pace of change is accelerating at such a high rate that five years from now the world as we know it will be turned upside down. With all the longing for the good old days there is no return to a way of life whose time has come and gone. I think that this fact is awfully hard for "Baby Boomers" to swallow. The more that I learn about history, the more I realize that the decline in the way of life that we were accustomed to is irreversible, especially in the short term. The past is still alive only through pretending, and I am talking about a past as recent as ten or fifteen years ago. People of the 1990's spoke a different language from a different age and we can wander through the melancholy of those ruins caught up in the longing of nostalgia, well watered by our tears, or we can get on with it. That is what my theme word "update" is all about. By the way, in Spanish the word is "actualizar".
If anyone is interested, the following is a partial list of the books that I read this past year that collectively raised my focus and my aspirations to a higher plane. I highly recommend all of them and they are all available for Amazon Kindle. I am excited about what the next few years may bring to those who prepare themselves and I invite you to join me in that regard.
Istanbul
by Pamuk, Orhan
Jerusalem: The Biography
by Montefiore, Simon Sebag
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Taleb, Nassim Nicholas
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
by Gleick, James
Secrets of Mental Math
by Shermer, Michael, and Benjamin, Arthur
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
by Bernstein, Peter L.
You Are Not So Smart
by McRaney, David
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
by Greenblatt, Stephen
On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius
The Calculus Direct
by Weiss, John
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
by Joshua Foer
Cod
by Kurlansky, Mark
Salt: A World History
by Kurlansky, Mark
Like my dear departed mother used to say,
"Onward ever, backward NEVER!".
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
.
30 December 2011
28 December 2011
A Christmas Fish Story
A few days before Christmas my wife Gina and her sister Cheli (Araceli) went shopping for the ingredients to make the traditional Christmas Eve meal. They bought a smoked turkey (pavo ahumado), beef loin (lomo de res) and the ingredients for things like spaghetti with cream sauce and a dish called "romeritos" which consists of dried shrimp, sprigs of a wild plant known as "Romerito" (Seepweed in English), and potatoes all served in mole sauce. Cheli insisted that they also buy some salt codfish which they call "bacalao" because Nochebuena wouldn't be Nochebuena without bacalao.
The only problem with bacalao is that it takes a long time to prepare because you have to remove the salt that was used to preserve it. If you have ever been to a Christmas Eve supper where the guests took a bite of bacalao and then reached for something to drink you know that the bacalao was still salty. This dish goes back five hundred years or more to a time when the Basque fishermen had already discovered the cod-rich Grand Banks off of Newfoundland even before Columbus supposedly "discovered" America. Thus the dried and salted Atlantic Cod became a staple of Portuguese and Spanish cuisine and an important trade item. The Portuguese called the salted cod fish "bacalhau" and we know it in Mexico as "bacalao" which is also what it is called in Spain. When the French explorer Jacques Cartier "discovered" the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in 1534 while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient, he noted the presence of a thousand Basque boats fishing for cod. The Basques congregated at a place called Port aux Basques at the extreme southwestern tip Newfoundland. To this day both the Trans-Canada Highway and the Trans-Canada Trail have their start and end points in Port aux Basques.
As things turned out the task of removing the salt from the bacalao fell to me. To do it right you need to keep the bacalao in water in a cool place and change the water every three or four hours for a couple of days as the salt migrates to the surface. It is a bit like caring for a baby. One night I got thirsty just thinking about salt cod and I got out of bed to go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Gina woke up and asked me where I was going and I said, "I'm going to change the bacalao. I heard it crying". By the time Christmas Eve rolled around the bacalao was salt free but there was another problem. We were running out of time. Gina called Cheli and told her that if she wanted to eat bacalao she would have to cook it. Cheli was frantic because she was running out of time also but her husband Luis volunteered to cook the poor bacalao and so he sent their daughter Luis over to fetch it. All's well that ends well however, and the bacalao turned out to be delicious.
When people commented on how good the bacalao tasted both Luis and I claimed credit but Gina said "Este bacalao es como una misa de tres padres" or "This bacalao is like a mass with three priests" meaning that many people had a hand in the success of the bacalao. In the Catholic Church, especially in the old days, a solemn high mass required three priests and a bunch of altar boys and a choir and so this must have been a solemn high cod fish and THAT is my picturesque and colloquial phrase of the day.
The only problem with bacalao is that it takes a long time to prepare because you have to remove the salt that was used to preserve it. If you have ever been to a Christmas Eve supper where the guests took a bite of bacalao and then reached for something to drink you know that the bacalao was still salty. This dish goes back five hundred years or more to a time when the Basque fishermen had already discovered the cod-rich Grand Banks off of Newfoundland even before Columbus supposedly "discovered" America. Thus the dried and salted Atlantic Cod became a staple of Portuguese and Spanish cuisine and an important trade item. The Portuguese called the salted cod fish "bacalhau" and we know it in Mexico as "bacalao" which is also what it is called in Spain. When the French explorer Jacques Cartier "discovered" the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in 1534 while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient, he noted the presence of a thousand Basque boats fishing for cod. The Basques congregated at a place called Port aux Basques at the extreme southwestern tip Newfoundland. To this day both the Trans-Canada Highway and the Trans-Canada Trail have their start and end points in Port aux Basques.
As things turned out the task of removing the salt from the bacalao fell to me. To do it right you need to keep the bacalao in water in a cool place and change the water every three or four hours for a couple of days as the salt migrates to the surface. It is a bit like caring for a baby. One night I got thirsty just thinking about salt cod and I got out of bed to go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Gina woke up and asked me where I was going and I said, "I'm going to change the bacalao. I heard it crying". By the time Christmas Eve rolled around the bacalao was salt free but there was another problem. We were running out of time. Gina called Cheli and told her that if she wanted to eat bacalao she would have to cook it. Cheli was frantic because she was running out of time also but her husband Luis volunteered to cook the poor bacalao and so he sent their daughter Luis over to fetch it. All's well that ends well however, and the bacalao turned out to be delicious.
When people commented on how good the bacalao tasted both Luis and I claimed credit but Gina said "Este bacalao es como una misa de tres padres" or "This bacalao is like a mass with three priests" meaning that many people had a hand in the success of the bacalao. In the Catholic Church, especially in the old days, a solemn high mass required three priests and a bunch of altar boys and a choir and so this must have been a solemn high cod fish and THAT is my picturesque and colloquial phrase of the day.
27 December 2011
Picturesque Speech
When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, the bathroom was where I learned to write because the bathroom is where my father kept his latest copy of Reader's Digest Magazine. While I was sitting there and "concentrating" I would simultaneously peruse Reader's Digest and my favorite section was called "Towards More Picturesque Speech". I just love poetic and colloquial expressions and the turn of a good phrase. I would pick out the best examples and try to emulate them in my speech and writing. No doubt as a twelve year old I sounded a bit strange saying things at the dinner table like "Hey Pops, Spring is coming around the bend like a speed skater rounding the turn on smooth ice". My father would sometime pause with fork in mid-air and glance at me quizzically as if suddenly startled. Nevertheless I never got over my fondness for words.
Now that I live in Mexico I have the double pleasure of savoring the intricacies of language in another tongue. I am never fully dressed without a pen and some three by five cards in my pocket and my ear is always cocked to hear something new. Hardly a day goes by without an interesting scribble or two. I thought I might share a recent example with my fellow students of Spanish.
My mother-in-law, Carmelita, is the Director of a state sanctioned preschool and kindergarten. Just before Christmas she was holding a "kermes" at the "kinder". For those of you that might not know, a kermes is a type of fair held by churches and schools to raise funds. The word "kermess" in English originally derived from the Middle Dutch word "kercmisse", a combination of the words "kerc" (meaning church) and "misse" (meaning mass) and the word was adopted by the English, French, and others and it denoted the mass that was celebrated annually in honor of the local patron saint. The Spanish spelling "kermes" uses only one letter "s".
While Carmelita was preparing for the kermes her good friend Angeles stopped by to give her a hand with the "tómbola". This is another interesting word. It comes from the Italian word "tombolare" meaning "to tumble". In several countries a "tombola" is a raffle where the winning ticket is chosen from a rotating drum that is "tumbled" by means of a hand crank. In Italy, the Italian version of Bingo is called "Tombola". Here in Central Mexico a "tómbola" or "tómbola de beneficiencia" is a charitable raffle in which you win a prize if the ticket you have bought is chosen and the number on it matches the number on the prize. There is generally some kind of a prize for every ticket so nobody leaves unhappy and often people swap their prizes. When the tómbola was almost ready Carmelita said to Angeles,
Estoy in punto de abrir la puerta y hacer la cruz. Elige usted el primero premio.
I am just about to open the door a make the cross. You choose the first prize.
In actuality Carmelita rewarded her friend for helping her by letting her have one of the prizes. Angeles chose a Pyrex casserole dish and was very content. The interesting phase in this instance is "hacer la cruz". If you have ever gone to the market in Mexico early in the morning and happened to be the first customer you may have noticed that when you gave the little old lady your money she kissed the crossed thumb and finger of the hand that held the money. She was thanking God for the first sale of the day. Carmelita used the phrase "hacer la cruz" in a colloquial manner to mean that she was about to sell the first ticket.
"Hacer la cruz" should not be confused with the regular words for "making the sign of the cross" which are "persignarse" and "santiguarse". "Persignarse" is to cross oneself with small crosses on the forehead, lips, and chest and "Santiguarse" is to make a full head and torso sign of the cross. Santiguarse means to bless yourself. Persignarse means to sign yourself. I go into this in detail in my blog post: Persignarse versus Santiguarse
There is another use for "hacer la cruz", by the way, that you have to watch out for. It means to cross someone off your list or to dump someone and in this case the cruz that is referred to is the "X" that you make over their name. And now here's a bonus for you if you have followed me thus far. Sometimes when people are bantering words instead of saying "igualmente" meaning "you too" or "the same to you" to be playful they will say "iguanas y ranas" or "iguanas-ranas" which means "iguanas and frogs" as a kind of play on words. Yesterday my doctor said to me "Iguanas-ranas dijo el sapo" meaning "Iguanas and frogs said the toad". Try it out. You will make someone smile.
Now that I live in Mexico I have the double pleasure of savoring the intricacies of language in another tongue. I am never fully dressed without a pen and some three by five cards in my pocket and my ear is always cocked to hear something new. Hardly a day goes by without an interesting scribble or two. I thought I might share a recent example with my fellow students of Spanish.
My mother-in-law, Carmelita, is the Director of a state sanctioned preschool and kindergarten. Just before Christmas she was holding a "kermes" at the "kinder". For those of you that might not know, a kermes is a type of fair held by churches and schools to raise funds. The word "kermess" in English originally derived from the Middle Dutch word "kercmisse", a combination of the words "kerc" (meaning church) and "misse" (meaning mass) and the word was adopted by the English, French, and others and it denoted the mass that was celebrated annually in honor of the local patron saint. The Spanish spelling "kermes" uses only one letter "s".
While Carmelita was preparing for the kermes her good friend Angeles stopped by to give her a hand with the "tómbola". This is another interesting word. It comes from the Italian word "tombolare" meaning "to tumble". In several countries a "tombola" is a raffle where the winning ticket is chosen from a rotating drum that is "tumbled" by means of a hand crank. In Italy, the Italian version of Bingo is called "Tombola". Here in Central Mexico a "tómbola" or "tómbola de beneficiencia" is a charitable raffle in which you win a prize if the ticket you have bought is chosen and the number on it matches the number on the prize. There is generally some kind of a prize for every ticket so nobody leaves unhappy and often people swap their prizes. When the tómbola was almost ready Carmelita said to Angeles,
Estoy in punto de abrir la puerta y hacer la cruz. Elige usted el primero premio.
I am just about to open the door a make the cross. You choose the first prize.
In actuality Carmelita rewarded her friend for helping her by letting her have one of the prizes. Angeles chose a Pyrex casserole dish and was very content. The interesting phase in this instance is "hacer la cruz". If you have ever gone to the market in Mexico early in the morning and happened to be the first customer you may have noticed that when you gave the little old lady your money she kissed the crossed thumb and finger of the hand that held the money. She was thanking God for the first sale of the day. Carmelita used the phrase "hacer la cruz" in a colloquial manner to mean that she was about to sell the first ticket.
"Hacer la cruz" should not be confused with the regular words for "making the sign of the cross" which are "persignarse" and "santiguarse". "Persignarse" is to cross oneself with small crosses on the forehead, lips, and chest and "Santiguarse" is to make a full head and torso sign of the cross. Santiguarse means to bless yourself. Persignarse means to sign yourself. I go into this in detail in my blog post: Persignarse versus Santiguarse
There is another use for "hacer la cruz", by the way, that you have to watch out for. It means to cross someone off your list or to dump someone and in this case the cruz that is referred to is the "X" that you make over their name. And now here's a bonus for you if you have followed me thus far. Sometimes when people are bantering words instead of saying "igualmente" meaning "you too" or "the same to you" to be playful they will say "iguanas y ranas" or "iguanas-ranas" which means "iguanas and frogs" as a kind of play on words. Yesterday my doctor said to me "Iguanas-ranas dijo el sapo" meaning "Iguanas and frogs said the toad". Try it out. You will make someone smile.
20 December 2011
A Blue Christmas
The colors that most people readily associate with Christmas are red and green. For a certain percentage of the population these days (including yours truly) the color blue seems more appropriate as in "I'm feeling blue". I have heard it said by some that the feeling is triggered by the diminished hours of sunlight during the Winter Solstice but perhaps it also has to do with disappointment coming from the unfulfilled expectations of prior Christmases. I don't know for sure except that thanks to a new word that I learned I have a better way of expressing the feeling.
I am reading a book by a famous Turkish author named Orhan Pamuk who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. The book is called "Istanbul: Memories and the City ". The author talks about the Turkish word "hüzün" that is pronounced "hoo-JOON" with the letter "J" sounding a bit like the "su" in the word "sure". It is generally translated into English as meaning "melancholy" or "longing" or "nostalgia". The meaning of "hüzün" is related to the description of the "black bile" or "black passion" of the ancient Greeks and can be caused by any number of things.
According to Orhan Pamuk "hüzün" is a special melancholy that binds the Istanbul Turkish community together in a collective feeling of nostalgia for the glory days of the past and the anguish over the increasing decay of the present state of affairs but nevertheless with a hopeful outlook for the future. The word "hüzün" originated in Arabic as a longing for God and it denotes a spiritual loss or separation. It is not the feeling of a single individual but rather it is the common emotion of millions of individuals who are suffering the same dark mood.
I think that we may be hearing more about this word "hüzün" in the coming year as the tensions mount over the presidential elections both in the United States and in Mexico. In both countries there seems to be a growing gulf between the the people with sufficient means to live comfortably and enjoy life and those who struggle for their daily bread or as they say here "el pan de cada día". I don't know where one would draw the line between the two. I have read recently that the average family in the United States needs an income of at least seventy-five thousand dollars per year to meet the criteria of "living comfortably". In Mexico it is no doubt somewhat below that amount but not by as much as you might think. Then there are the modestly rich and I say more power to them. It is their energy, intelligence, and vision that makes a good economy possible. They are no doubt the role model that many people aspire to emulate. I have no quarrel with that. In these uncertain times I think that all three groups can share the feeling of "hüzün".
There is one more group of people who I don't believe can even understand the melancholy of the other three. The word that I choose to describe them is "hubris". This word means "extreme haughtiness, pride, or arrogance indicative of a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities and a complete lack of humility". It seems to me that when banks, corporations, and other institutions are labeled "too big to fail" they are tempting fate to the extent that their demise is inevitable and that they may have already begun their descent. Like the Titanic of one hundred years ago, all it will take is one big chunk of floating ice to bring them down. Being an optimist at heart I must have faith that they will not drag us all down with them like third class passengers in steerage. Thank God we have the Congress to save us, eh?
I am reading a book by a famous Turkish author named Orhan Pamuk who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. The book is called "Istanbul: Memories and the City ". The author talks about the Turkish word "hüzün" that is pronounced "hoo-JOON" with the letter "J" sounding a bit like the "su" in the word "sure". It is generally translated into English as meaning "melancholy" or "longing" or "nostalgia". The meaning of "hüzün" is related to the description of the "black bile" or "black passion" of the ancient Greeks and can be caused by any number of things.
According to Orhan Pamuk "hüzün" is a special melancholy that binds the Istanbul Turkish community together in a collective feeling of nostalgia for the glory days of the past and the anguish over the increasing decay of the present state of affairs but nevertheless with a hopeful outlook for the future. The word "hüzün" originated in Arabic as a longing for God and it denotes a spiritual loss or separation. It is not the feeling of a single individual but rather it is the common emotion of millions of individuals who are suffering the same dark mood.
I think that we may be hearing more about this word "hüzün" in the coming year as the tensions mount over the presidential elections both in the United States and in Mexico. In both countries there seems to be a growing gulf between the the people with sufficient means to live comfortably and enjoy life and those who struggle for their daily bread or as they say here "el pan de cada día". I don't know where one would draw the line between the two. I have read recently that the average family in the United States needs an income of at least seventy-five thousand dollars per year to meet the criteria of "living comfortably". In Mexico it is no doubt somewhat below that amount but not by as much as you might think. Then there are the modestly rich and I say more power to them. It is their energy, intelligence, and vision that makes a good economy possible. They are no doubt the role model that many people aspire to emulate. I have no quarrel with that. In these uncertain times I think that all three groups can share the feeling of "hüzün".
There is one more group of people who I don't believe can even understand the melancholy of the other three. The word that I choose to describe them is "hubris". This word means "extreme haughtiness, pride, or arrogance indicative of a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities and a complete lack of humility". It seems to me that when banks, corporations, and other institutions are labeled "too big to fail" they are tempting fate to the extent that their demise is inevitable and that they may have already begun their descent. Like the Titanic of one hundred years ago, all it will take is one big chunk of floating ice to bring them down. Being an optimist at heart I must have faith that they will not drag us all down with them like third class passengers in steerage. Thank God we have the Congress to save us, eh?
26 November 2011
Eye for an Eye
The other day my wife Gina went to visit a relative who has recently given birth to a baby girl and when she returned from the visit Gina exclaimed with incredulity "Ellos ya le pusieron un ojo de venado en su muñeca!" or "They already put a deer's eye on her wrist!". I was just as surprised as she was because the people involved are fairly middle class and well educated but apparently old superstitions and traditions die hard. The "ojo de venado" is an amulet made from the seed of a flowering vine and this seed is large and dark and about the size and shape of the eye of a deer. It's purpose is to ward off the "mal de ojo" or "evil eye" which is also called "el alojamiento". The word "alojamiento" means "habitation" or "lodging" as used in conjunction with the word "hotel" but in this particular case it means "something lodged in the eye".
The "evil eye" concept goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans and most of the time it refers to envy. It is mentioned several times in the Bible in both the Old and the New Testaments. For example, in Proverbs verse 23:6 (KJV) it says "Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye" and in Mark 7:22 (KJV) it lists as sins "Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness". The "evil eye" is also mentioned in the Holy Qur'an and is something that the Prophet Muhammad himself was very well acquainted with. Verse 51 of the Sūrat (Chapter) al-Qalam (The Pen) which is the 68th sura of the Qur'an says "Those who disbelieve would almost trip thee up with their eyes.” The Angel Gabriel read an incantation upon the Prophet to protect him from the evil eye.
In Mexico, "el mal de ojo" occurs when someone who is weak, or an infant or a child, is stared at by a person with a piercing glance especially if the stare is a result of jealousy or envy. The stare is said to make the affected person's spirit sick. The symptoms of "mal de ojo" include headaches, high fever, fretfulness, and in the case of children, stomach ache, weeping, and a refusal to eat or sleep. This infirmity is often referred to as "el aliacán". The standard cure for "el aliacán" is the "limpia de huevo" or "egg cleaning". Someone, usually a grandmother, will take an egg (preferably from a black feathered chicken if available) and pass the unbroken egg all over the body of the child while reciting either the Lord's Prayer or the Apostles Creed (whichever one is the local custom). Depending upon the specific situation sometimes they will use a bundle of an herb called "epazote" (Dysphania ambrosioides) instead of an egg. Afterward passing the egg over the body they crack open the egg and put it in a glass jar and set it under the bed (same with the epazote) and in the morning the egg will have become darker and one should be able to see one or more bubble-like "ojos" or "eyes". The epazote has no visible changes. The mother or grandmother then takes the egg (or the epazote) away from the house and throws it in a ditch over her shoulder and returns to the house being careful not to look back lest the "mal de ojo" return.
The "ojo de venado" is supposed to be an "apotropaic" (in English) which means "something to ward off evil". In Spanish it is called an "apotropaico". The charm is made from the dark brownish black seed of a plant whose botanical name is "Mucuna pruriens". In English it is generally called Velvet Bean or Cowhage. The beans grow in pods that have a covering of fine hair-like needles that are very irritating to the skin. Mucuna pruriens often grows near rivers or streams and when the pods pop open the seeds fall into the water and distribute themselves by floating downstream. They end up in the ocean and regularly wash up on beaches, where they are known as "sea beans" and collected as lucky pieces. They are round and flat and about the size of a U.S. quarter. The complete charm consists of the seed with a ribbon or yarn attached with which it is fastened to the body. Often there will also be a holy picture or religious symbol on the bean.
I can't say that I have ever felt the effects of an evil eye but I may have experienced something similar when I failed to put my dirty dishes in the sink or I tracked mud into the house. In those cases perhaps an "ojo de venado" might have helped help but I doubt it. About the only remedy that I have found effective for things like that is to apologize profusely and to beg forgiveness.
The "evil eye" concept goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans and most of the time it refers to envy. It is mentioned several times in the Bible in both the Old and the New Testaments. For example, in Proverbs verse 23:6 (KJV) it says "Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye" and in Mark 7:22 (KJV) it lists as sins "Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness". The "evil eye" is also mentioned in the Holy Qur'an and is something that the Prophet Muhammad himself was very well acquainted with. Verse 51 of the Sūrat (Chapter) al-Qalam (The Pen) which is the 68th sura of the Qur'an says "Those who disbelieve would almost trip thee up with their eyes.” The Angel Gabriel read an incantation upon the Prophet to protect him from the evil eye.
In Mexico, "el mal de ojo" occurs when someone who is weak, or an infant or a child, is stared at by a person with a piercing glance especially if the stare is a result of jealousy or envy. The stare is said to make the affected person's spirit sick. The symptoms of "mal de ojo" include headaches, high fever, fretfulness, and in the case of children, stomach ache, weeping, and a refusal to eat or sleep. This infirmity is often referred to as "el aliacán". The standard cure for "el aliacán" is the "limpia de huevo" or "egg cleaning". Someone, usually a grandmother, will take an egg (preferably from a black feathered chicken if available) and pass the unbroken egg all over the body of the child while reciting either the Lord's Prayer or the Apostles Creed (whichever one is the local custom). Depending upon the specific situation sometimes they will use a bundle of an herb called "epazote" (Dysphania ambrosioides) instead of an egg. Afterward passing the egg over the body they crack open the egg and put it in a glass jar and set it under the bed (same with the epazote) and in the morning the egg will have become darker and one should be able to see one or more bubble-like "ojos" or "eyes". The epazote has no visible changes. The mother or grandmother then takes the egg (or the epazote) away from the house and throws it in a ditch over her shoulder and returns to the house being careful not to look back lest the "mal de ojo" return.
The "ojo de venado" is supposed to be an "apotropaic" (in English) which means "something to ward off evil". In Spanish it is called an "apotropaico". The charm is made from the dark brownish black seed of a plant whose botanical name is "Mucuna pruriens". In English it is generally called Velvet Bean or Cowhage. The beans grow in pods that have a covering of fine hair-like needles that are very irritating to the skin. Mucuna pruriens often grows near rivers or streams and when the pods pop open the seeds fall into the water and distribute themselves by floating downstream. They end up in the ocean and regularly wash up on beaches, where they are known as "sea beans" and collected as lucky pieces. They are round and flat and about the size of a U.S. quarter. The complete charm consists of the seed with a ribbon or yarn attached with which it is fastened to the body. Often there will also be a holy picture or religious symbol on the bean.
I can't say that I have ever felt the effects of an evil eye but I may have experienced something similar when I failed to put my dirty dishes in the sink or I tracked mud into the house. In those cases perhaps an "ojo de venado" might have helped help but I doubt it. About the only remedy that I have found effective for things like that is to apologize profusely and to beg forgiveness.
24 November 2011
Abundance
When I was a kid the pilgrims and the good ship Mayflower and the turkey were all symbols of Thanksgiving but I remember that the main symbol was a "Cornucopia" or "Horn of Plenty". In Spanish it is called a "Cuerno de la Abundancia". There are various legends about its origin but the main theme seems to center around Greek mythology. When the god Zeus was a baby he had to be protected from his father, Kronus, who had deposed his own father Uranus and feared being deposed in turn by his own son Zeus even though Zeus was still a baby. Kronus's sister Rhea hid the baby Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete. He was cared for by a number of divine attendants, including the goddess of nourishment, Amalthea, who had the form of a goat and who fed baby Zeus with her milk. The baby Zeus was very strong and while playing with Amalthea he accidentally broke off one of her horns, which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as Amalthea had provided to baby Zeus.
I find the counucopia appealing because I am "cornucopian" who believes that in addition to the continued progress and discoveries of mankind there is enough matter and energy on the Earth (by the grace of God) to provide for the Earth's population well into the future.
In the meantime I think it is fitting to pause and give thanks on this day just for being alive and for being part of this great puzzle. To those of you who can afford to celebrate Thanksgiving as well as those who find themselves in less than a thankful mood or in a difficult circumstance or environment, I salute you all in spirit and the hope for a brighter future for all of us.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
20 November 2011
John Buridan's Committee
There is an old philosophical story named after John Buridan who was a French priest and philosopher in the 14th century that somewhat describes the present situation of the budget "Super Committee" in Washington, D.C. The name of the story is "John Buridan's Donkey". It is actually a satire on John Buridan's philosophy of moral determinism which stated that God always encourages virtue and punishes evil and therefore man can determine his reward and punishment through his deeds. John Buridan's critics argued that the rewards and punishments are mainly the result of random events because without random events there can be no truly free will. Their position was that there is no intervention by God since He is not interested in limiting free will through rewards and punishments that would set limits on the free will of man in making choices.
Buridan claimed that man can exercise his free will by delaying his courses of action regarding good versus evil and thinking about the morality of his actions beforehand and that a moral person who is faced with alternative courses of action by the very definition of a "moral person" must always choose the greater good and for this reason be rewarded for his choice through the satisfaction of having done the right thing as well as other potential rewards both spiritual and temporal as judged appropriate by God.
His critics seized upon his exercise in free will through delay and moral reasoning by using the story of the donkey which they named after him. There are some minor variations in the story but the gist of it is that there is a donkey and on one side of him there is a bushel of oats and on the other side there is a bushel of rye. The donkey is very hungry but since the oats and the rye are equidistant from where he is standing and the donkey not possessing much by way of the power of reasoning, the subsequent long delay in choosing which one to eat results in the donkey's untimely death by starvation.
This problem of Buridan's donkey stated in terms of mathematics goes "A discrete decision based upon an input having a continuous range of values cannot be made within a bounded length of time", that is to say, that given this particular problem there can be no time limit in making the choice and this doesn't bode well for the unfortunate donkey since the choice can be made at any time approaching infinity. In digital electronics the problem is called "metastability" or "unstable equilibrium" which involves the amount of time of a system can remain stable. In metastable states, the circuit may be unable to settle into a stable "0" or "1" logic level within the time required for proper circuit operation. As a result, the circuit can act in unpredictable ways, and may lead to a system failure.
Hmmm, "inability to make a logical moral decision before the time runs out and serious consequences such as a system failure as a result". If that doesn't sound like the "Super Committee" problem then I don't know what does. I just hope that they make a decision for the "greater good" before the final gavel sounds or else we may have to relieve John Buridan of the donkey and rename it something else... like "John Boehner's Ass".
Buridan claimed that man can exercise his free will by delaying his courses of action regarding good versus evil and thinking about the morality of his actions beforehand and that a moral person who is faced with alternative courses of action by the very definition of a "moral person" must always choose the greater good and for this reason be rewarded for his choice through the satisfaction of having done the right thing as well as other potential rewards both spiritual and temporal as judged appropriate by God.
His critics seized upon his exercise in free will through delay and moral reasoning by using the story of the donkey which they named after him. There are some minor variations in the story but the gist of it is that there is a donkey and on one side of him there is a bushel of oats and on the other side there is a bushel of rye. The donkey is very hungry but since the oats and the rye are equidistant from where he is standing and the donkey not possessing much by way of the power of reasoning, the subsequent long delay in choosing which one to eat results in the donkey's untimely death by starvation.
This problem of Buridan's donkey stated in terms of mathematics goes "A discrete decision based upon an input having a continuous range of values cannot be made within a bounded length of time", that is to say, that given this particular problem there can be no time limit in making the choice and this doesn't bode well for the unfortunate donkey since the choice can be made at any time approaching infinity. In digital electronics the problem is called "metastability" or "unstable equilibrium" which involves the amount of time of a system can remain stable. In metastable states, the circuit may be unable to settle into a stable "0" or "1" logic level within the time required for proper circuit operation. As a result, the circuit can act in unpredictable ways, and may lead to a system failure.
Hmmm, "inability to make a logical moral decision before the time runs out and serious consequences such as a system failure as a result". If that doesn't sound like the "Super Committee" problem then I don't know what does. I just hope that they make a decision for the "greater good" before the final gavel sounds or else we may have to relieve John Buridan of the donkey and rename it something else... like "John Boehner's Ass".
25 September 2011
Good News from Googley
Here in Mexico many people still pronounce the word "Google" like they would if it was a Spanish word and it sounds something like "GOOG-leh" or "GOOG-lay". No matter how you pronounce it though, the people from Google continue to amaze me. I was having trouble with my Firefox web browser and I had heard that the Google browser named "Chrome" is much more stable and even faster. I downloaded Google Chrome browser and installed it with no problem and found that it is similar to Firefox and that I could even import my Firefox bookmarks very easily. Not only that but there are plug-ins and add-ons available just like with Firefox.
"So what?" you might ask. Well, I'll tell you. I noticed that in the Google search engine in the Chrome browser there is a little microphone icon. If you hook up a microphone to your computer or if you already have one you can click on the microphone icon and then speak into your microphone and enunciate whatever you are looking for. In a flash it will provide the links just as if you had typed in the search parameter with your fingers. It works so well that it is scary. I played around with it and you can even use it as a calculator. For example, to convert 72 degrees Fahrenheit into degrees Centigrade all you have to do is click on the microphone and say "72 F in C" and it will return 22.2222222 Degrees Centigrade. Suppose that you want to know how many kilometers there are in 5.4 miles. Just "click" and say "5.4 miles in kilometers" and it will automatically return "5.4 miles = 8.6904576 kilometers". There is a whole host of mathematical functions that it will perform in response to your voice commands.
Now, here is something for students of Spanish. If you go to "Google Translate" in the Chrome browser you can speak the English sentence that you want to have translated into Spanish and it will return the Spanish translation. For example, if you click on the icon and say "I am going to the store" it will immediately return "Voy a la tienda" and then if you want to hear it in Spanish you just click on the little speaker icon and a pleasant voice will repeat the phrase so that you can hear how the words are pronounced.
While I was at my local Walmart stocking up on supplies from China I found a stand-alone microphone that is used for conference calls for 54 pesos or about $3.87 U.S. I just plugged it into the computer and it sits on the desk and it will pick up a voice from anywhere in the immediate vicinity without having to speak into it directly. Now I just tell Google what I need and it is delivered to me as if I were a king. Hey! I am a king! So then why doesn't somebody king me?
23 September 2011
A failure to communicate
In the 1967 movie “Cool Hand Luke” there is an unforgettable line that was used twice, once by the prison captain (played by Strother Martin), and once by Cool Hand Luke (played by Paul Newman). The line is:
Based upon some reading that I have been doing lately I discovered that I may have a failure in communication with myself…not my present self, but my future self. The theory goes that your present persona is not exactly the same as your future persona and may not be operating under the same set of circumstances. The emotional state, physical state, and environmental conditions surrounding your present self may be completely different from that of your future self. So how is it possible that our present self can communicate successfully with our future self?
I remember that when I was a little boy we actually did communicate successfully with our future selves through the U.S. mail, albeit that it was only one-way. Each spring at the end of the school year the Dominican nuns who taught at our school would require that we bring two unused “penny” postcards to school. In those days it only cost three cents to mail a letter and one cent to mail a postcard. The plain prepaid postcards were a manila color and they already had a one cent postage stamp printed on them. We would address these postcards to ourselves and on one of them we would remind ourselves to go to mass on the Feast of the Assumption on August 15th because it is a Catholic holy day of obligation…one of those days which the Church tells us we must celebrate in order to meet the minimum level of commitment to the Catholic faith. The Second postcard was to remind us of the date when school started up again after summer vacation. The nuns would mail the postcards a couple of days ahead of the target date and we would in this way notify our future selves of the event. A typical postcard from my present self to my future self would go something like this:
Dear Bobby,
Don’t forget that August 15th is the Feast of the assumption and you must go to mass because it is a holy day of obligation. I hope that you are having a wonderful summer vacation.
Your friend,
Bobby
Of course we forgot all about these postcards during the course of summer vacation and when they arrived in the mail it was a nice surprise. I always felt a little sad, however, that I couldn’t write back to my friend because he (me) was no longer there.
21 September 2011
Hoe to the end of the row!
In my job I am training an assistant who will take my place when I eventually retire. He is a very bright young engineer from the state of Veracruz. He is 25 years old and his name is Arturo. Among other things that I am teaching him I am helping him to improve his English. I made a pact with him that everyday I will teach him something but every day he must also teach me something. It is turning out to be a nice little game from which we both benefit. Today I made a comment in English about the necessity to complete projects to the last detail and I said that we must always "hoe to the end of the row". Then I needed to explain in Spanish what I meant by "hoe to the end of the row". There was only one problem. I couldn't remember the word for "hoe" in Spanish so I drew a picture of a hoe and Arturo said "Ahhh, un azadón". So once we established that the word for hoe is "azadón" (ah-zah-DOHN), I could get on with the explanation.
Naturally when talking about the hoe the subject of hoeing weeds came and that lead to a very interesting conversation. Arturo told me that labor for hoeing isn't paid for by the hour but by the "tarea". The equivalent English word for the Spanish "tarea" is generally "task" or "chore" and in the case of school children it means "homework". However when it is used in reference to farm labor it is a unit of measure used to denote area. Arturo told me that where he is from there are twenty tareas in one hectare and a hectare is a metric unit that is equal to about two and a half acres. He said that a man can hoe about four tareas in a normal day and five tareas if he works from sunup until early evening. That sounds just about right because I found some information from the University of California that states the average time to hoe an acre of a crop such as broccoli is twenty-two hours and four tareas is equal to about a half an acre so you can see that hoeing a half acre is a full day's work.
"Well", you might ask, What does all this hoeing pay?" The answer is like most othe things, "That depends". It is a negotiated price that depends on the type of crop, the availability of labor, the time of year, and other variables. Arturo did give me the current rate for cutting sugar cane and from that we might be able to make a good guess. He said that sugar cane harvesting is paid by the square meter but there are two rates. If the underbrush is burned off with a controlled fire before harvesting then the labor paid is forty centavos per square meter. If the underbrush isn't burned off first then the job pays a higher rate of fifty centavos per square meter. If we relate that to "tareas" we can calculate that since there are ten thousand square meters in a hectare and twenty tareas in a hectare then one tarea will equal five hundred square meters which at forty centavos per meter would yield twenty pesos per tarea and at fifty centavos would yield twenty-five pesos per tarea. There are about twelve two to three meter stalks stalks in each square meter and harvest entails cutting the stalks and removing the tops and leaves. If a man can cut four tareas of sugar cane in a day at the fifty centavo rate then he can make one hundred Mexican pesos or about seven dollars or so at the current exchange rate. That isn't much for a full day's work in the hot sun so please say a little prayer for the sugar cane workers the next time you sweeten up your cup of coffee.
Now, about hoeing to the end of the row, I hope that you enjoy this poem by Douglas Malloch published around 1926. The name of the poem is "Bill Brown".
Bill Brown
Bill Brown made a million, Bill Brown, think of that!
A boy, you remember, as poor as a rat.
Who hoed for the neighbors, did jobs by the day,
Well Bill's made a million, or near it, they say.
You can't understand it, well, neither could I.
But then I remembered, and now I know why.
The bell might be ringin', the dinner horn blow,
But Bill always hoed to the end of the row.
Bill worked for my father, you maybe recall.
He wasn't a wonder, not that, not at all.
He couldn't out-hoe me, nor cover more ground,
Or hoe any cleaner, or beat me around.
In fact I was better one way that I knew:
One toot from the kitchen, and home I would go,
But Bill always hoed to the end of the row.
We used to get hongry out there in the corn,
You talk about music, what equals a horn?
A horn yellin' dinner, tomatoes and beans,
And pork and potatoes, and gravy and greens.
I ain't blamin' no one, for quittin' on time,
To stop with the whistle, that ain't any crime.
But as for the million, well, this much I know:
That Bill always hoed to the end of the row!
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About Me
- Bob Mrotek
- I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. I have been living in Mexico since January 6th, 1999. I am continually studying to improve my knowledge of the Spanish language and Mexican history and culture. I am also a student of Mandarin Chinese.
