Paraphrase Needed

If we stop calling tortillas tortillas and say instead that because intrusion of E85 fuel production is causing corn prices to rise, the people of Mexico are finding it more difficult to make bread, maybe people elsewhere will have an easier time understanding the problem. Even though the tortilla is a type of bread, the name seems to be causing a disconnect in the minds of people who don’t speak the language.

While we’re at it, how about quitting all high fructose corn syrup production and using the corn that would have gone to make that to make the ethanol? And since the transnational gruel corporations insist on making GMO seed, we can send all of that to the E85 producers.

Unilingualism: Welcome to the English Planet

I don’t think I have ever liked this idea. I first read about it back in the late 1980s. I studied languages. I have a degree in Hebrew from UT Austin and I have studied German, Greek and Spanish as well. I felt threatened by the idea of having my native tongue become the universal language of the planet. I felt like it was making my studies be in vain. The challenge becomes unnecessary. Why go to the trouble? Everybody you meet is going to be talking to you in English. There are a lot of native speakers of English who would like that. It doesn’t require any effort. Even if they leave the country everything they encounter will be familiar. If you travel abroad you’ve seen them. They’re the assholes complaining about everything not being like they thought it should. You tend to not see them though because they’re also the ones who never go anywhere else but think they’re living in the last place touched by God.

Offended Parishoner

For a short while in the early 1980s I attended the Church of Religious Science. During one of the sermons the minister said, “…that doesn’t do a DAMN bit of good when a person is hurting.” He was referring to common platitudes uttered by the seemingly well meaning, which do nothing but exacerbate the pain of others. While I agreed with what he said I was surprised that he said it. I wasn’t offended, but I didn’t have much of a church upbringing. I was talking with him a few weeks later and he mentioned that a woman had come up to him after the service to inform him that she would not be returning to the services. She said that she could not believe that a minister would curse from the pulpit. He seemed to not understand why she was offended. While the content was correct. Hearing things like that doesn’t do a damn bit of good for anyone except maybe the speaker. He didn’t consider how his language was being perceived and as a result he lost a churchmember.

Living out the dream

If the dream begins with the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It ends with the statement “I shoulda, I coulda, I woulda.”

We all live out two lives. There is the life we pictured ourselves having when we were young and then there is the life we actually live. The difference between these two is affected by a number of different things. A large part of living out or not living out your dream has to do with preparation but that’s not all your fault. Preparation takes the form of physical, mental, linguistic, financial, social and spiritual and it needs to begin very early in life. Parents begin the preparation. Parents and schools continue it. You finish it. Some parents shirk their responsibilities in this area and leave the task solely up to the schools…usually the public school system. The extent to which it is entirely the job of the schools to teach these lessons is a subject of ongoing debate. The results show how all this works out. We exit the school system retarded in a number of critical areas for everything life is about to throw at us. My apologies for borrowing a word some consider sacred to a certain concept but that is the best word for what many young adults face. Our financial development is retarded. We reach adulthood not understanding that you cannot consume more than you have produced. No one teaches us that whatever isn’t earning you money is costing you money. Instead of that we’re encouraged by advertisers and credit peddlers to borrow sums we cannot pay back. And that corruption goes all the way to the top. Right now the American president is proposing sending everyone a check to spur economic growth. And there are rumors that they really want us to buy stuff with it rather than save it. I’m suggesting that everyone put it to the best use they can, starting with savings and working outward from there. Since we aren’t prepared for dealing with money growing up we have to take the time to learn about it on our own. More people are starting to understand this and learn the things they have needed to learn thanks to authors like Robert T. Kiyosaki of the Rich Dad/Poor Dad fame. I really wish I could have sat out a year after high school and before college to just study money. That would have helped me a lot over the last 27 years. I mean I didn’t want to be a banker, but I have only begun to understand why my finances have gone the way they have.

There were several things I thought I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was in kindergarten the teacher brought out a bunch of little posterboard dolls and asked us what we wanted to be. This was in the late 1960s. There were no male nurses, female cops, or postpersons. There wasn’t even an astronaut in the pile. And after the moon that is what I thought I wanted to be. Well I didn’t prepare myself. And so the astronaut thing is out. Best case I will be able to retire in 11 years and become an astronomer. I have a lot of work to do towards that end and most of it doesn’t have anything to do with astronomy. Is the fact that I am not doing what I set out to do 39 years ago anyone’s fault? Yeah. Mine, mostly. Some of it my parents. Some of it the schools. Things could have been done/happened differently all around. And that is not unique to me. I don’t know anyone who set out from age 6 and worked towards a goal and achieved it at 25. We make decisions. There are distractions. At best we end up headed back towards whatever it is we set out seeking. So if there is anything that you wanted to do more than anything in this world when you were 8, go do it. Don’t let the fact that you’re 58 stop you. If you wanted to be a scientist and you’re a journalist, become a science writer. If you can’t be exactly what it is you wanted, then figure out a way to at least be able to rub up against it. Fix the plane if you can’t fly it. Design a better breathing apparatus for firefighters. Improve the shoulderpads and shinguards for football and soccer players. No it’s not the same. But at least it allows you to touch with your passion and your abilities the thing you have always been passionate about.

The Eviction Notice

I have had a habit of cussing most of my life. I’ve gotten in trouble for it a few times. On one occasion I got banned from a neighbor’s yard. We used to play in what I think was a vacant lot behind his property. At least it wasn’t the back yard that was sodded. Anyway there was a hoop on a pole. On a couple of occasions I had said a word or two or three of profanity and at one point the dad had told me to stop it. He said he didn’t want me talking like that in his yard. So a month or two later we were back there and I popped off. So he comes out of his house and says, “Let’s go. I told you to watch your mouth. I don’t want to see you in my yard no more.” I followed him out across his back yard and got on my bike. I don’t remember whether I looked at him or not. I didn’t apologize or say anything. I just got on my bike and left. Well a few weeks later another neighbor kid and I got into an argument and he started threatening to tell my mother what had happened with me getting kicked out of that yard. I don’t know how he knew. I guess he didn’t see me go apologize or hear that I had apologized so he figured, quite correctly, that I hadn’t said anything to my mother. I didn’t say anything because she would have forced me to go apologize and I didn’t want to apologize. He told me to leave and not come back. I was not disrespecting him. I was complying with his wishes and not setting foot on his property. I really don’t know that I felt any remorse over what had happened. I had been warned and I had stepped over the bounds he set one time too many. You could say that at 10 I was acting like an adult. Well I don’t know abou that. I do know that I was talking like an adult. The problem was this so-called friend who was going to make sure that my mother knew the truth. I should have stood up to him and told him to mind his own business. But the fear of having to deal with my parents over this overtook and instead I cried and begged him not to say anything to my mother. I guess you could say I wimped or wussed out. I don’t know how well taking that stance with him would have worked. I’m sure he would have gone to mom anyway and she, in the standard parental sense of justice, decorum, embarrassment and socialization, would have told me I couldn’t ban him from the property and that I still had to go down the street and apologize. Oh well. I got my wish. Mom never found out that I got kicked out of that yard, I never apologized or even saw the man again. As far as who was right or wrong. I was wrong in not obeying him the first time. He was right to tell me to leave. Was I wrong in not saying I was sorry and begging him to please let me continue to visit? I don’t know. There ought to be something wrong with saying you’re sorry when you’re not. And I didn’t feel the emotion that everyone thought I should…remorse.

George Lucas needs to hire this guy

You know it wasn’t until the end that we really got to see the human side of Vader. I thought Anakin was a whining brat, especially after he grew up. But really, in episodes 4-6 I think Vader needed to get involved with a study of the humanities. Learn a language. Write poetry. Read. No wonder his thoughts were only evil continually. He could have played for the emperor and maybe saved a few worlds.

Purging of cliches

I am seeing the words “daunting task” used a lot. I have caught myself using them quite a bit as well. I think we are all using it to mean something is going to require a great deal of effort and going through that process might be discouraging. Okay fine. But I think we need to put that phrase away for a while and start saying other things like disheartening, discouraging, seemingly more trouble than it’s worth. Getting cliches out of your active vocabulary is not easy. They’re sneaky, convenient and seem to pop up voluntarily when you’re trying to compose something in a hurry.

Foreign language proficiency

Learning a foreign language for business purposes is a bit different than the longer-term goal of developing overall fluency. An executive who is being sent to work a branch in another country needs to develop proficiency in the language at a much faster pace than a college student majoring in the language. He or she will need a school willing to work towards individual language learning goals and with his or her schedule. For example, a person in international sales with a large portion of business is in Italy, would benefit greatly from an Italian language training course. They’ll have vocabulary terms specific to their business as well as general words and phrases to learn. People in such jobs usually begin such courses with a small degree of familiarity with the language from having visited the country. Persons going to live in the country may need to take an intensive course before relocating. Executive Language Training can help make your language training goals a reality. They’ll determine your needs and goals and assign you an instructor in Italian who is a certified professional. You can learn one-on-one and better yet if there are several of your colleagues needing Italian instruction, arrange a group class. With measured progress you’ll find your skills improving on a regular basis. ELT has trained executives from Fortune 500 companies both in the US and abroad. Have a look at their site at eltlearn dot com.