Opposites Detract?

Monday, March 29, 2021

Law Professor David ably Zoomed us out of Egypt this weekend.  Many of my faithful readers know that Passover is special for me above and beyond its timeless story of the search for freedom.  Until homebound by the pandemic, we would attend at least one seder at the gracious home of Aunt Judi and Uncle Stu.  However, it was not the interior decoration that was the main attraction, liberation of the Jewish people aside. 

Aunt Judi's meals were legendary and I always tried to publicize her menus as soon as I crossed the Red Sea.  Now, for the second year, we have been denied our respective pleasures, mine gustatory, yours vicarious.  Next year in Englewood! 

. . .

The other day, a friend called my attention to a documentary movie clip wherein a federal law enforcement agent chuckled as he identified a case of arson as "Jewish lightning."  My friend was upset at this display of what he believed was anti-Semitism.  When I pursued his concern, I found that arson has been labelled as Greek lightning as well.  https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Greek%20Lightning

 

Possibly lessening the insult is the Cinnamon Honey Liqueur also named Greek Lightning.  https://store.passionspirits.com/greek-lightning.htm

This made me think about derisive labels in circulation.  We see the ugly consequences of the 45th president describing the current pandemic as the "China Flu."  Of course, "Spanish Flu" has remained the label of a previous deadly epidemic for a century, although its actual origin is unknown even to this day.  The first observations of illness and mortality were documented in Kansas in March 1918 and then in April in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.  However, I learned from Wikipedia that the label emerged when Spain's King Alfonso XIII became gravely ill.  Spain was neutral in WWI and had no wartime censorship restrictions, so his illness and subsequent recovery were reported to the world, while flu outbreaks in the belligerent countries were concealed. 

There may not have been malice in naming the Spanish Flu, but the labelling of syphilis has been weaponized over the centuries.  "The French called it the 'Neapolitan disease', or the 'Spanish disease', and also the 'great pox', the English and Italians called it the 'French disease', or the 'French pox', Germans called it the 'French evil', the Russians called it the 'Polish disease', the Polish and the Persians called it the 'Turkish disease'.  The Turkish called it the 'Christian disease', the Tahitians called it the 'British disease', in India it was called the 'Portuguese disease', in Japan it was called the 'Chinese pox'.”  https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/21/when-syphilis-first-surfaced-the-english-called-it-the-french-disease-they-werent-happy/

Of course, if you wish to avoid syphilis, you can use a French letter.  https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=french%20letter

We can add Dutch courage, French leave, driving while Asian, among other terms where the group identity is part of the insult. 

. . .

I just learned something -- Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”  In other words, when we set one specific goal, people will tend to optimize for that objective regardless of the consequences. 

https://towardsdatascience.com/unintended-consequences-and-goodharts-law-68d60a94705c

I may be one of many who internalized this as a manager or a teacher, but credit Goodhart for saying it out loud, a form of genius in itself.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Each week's copy of The New Yorker usually arrives on Tuesday.  However, I still can't figure out this cartoon from last week's issue.

 

After being stumped by it, I asked some others of penetrating intellect for help.  They got no further than I did.  Can someone out there enlighten us?  I thought of one possibility from my data processing days.  Lists of names, membership lists, telephone directories (remember them?), and the like, would have a few phony entries, which would be unknowingly reproduced in unauthorized copies claiming to be original works.  Maybe this cartoon is deliberately meaningless in order to trip up pontificating gas bags.

. . .

This morning, before going to the mailbox, I went to NYU Medical Center for a stress test, meant, I insist, to induce stress where none existed previously.  I was found to be an excellent example of an overweight, out of shape, over-the-hill individual.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

My brother taught English literature for decades.  Although retired, he remains attentive to developments in the academic world.  He referred me to this exciting change.  "Montana Universities Prepare for Guns on Campuses."  https://www.chronicle.com/article/montana-universities-prepare-for-guns-on-campuses 

Won't office hours be fun?

. . .

Who is qualified to translate Amanda Gorman's poetry from English into a foreign language is a cultural controversy that landed on the front page of the New York Times.  

https://nyti.ms/3rz7RWh 

For some, the focus is not upon the résumé of the candidates, but their race or gender.  Does the work of this African-American woman, who soared to national attention at Biden's presidential inauguration, require or deserve to be translated abroad only by people of color?

If the issue centers on the underutilization of non-white translators generally, affirmative action is more than justified.  For example, a survey by the American Literary Translators Association found that only 2 percent of the 362 translators who responded were Black, which may represent lack of interest or lack of opportunity.

However, basing such hiring decisions on claims that the translator's identity should mirror Gorman's identity is provincial, at least, if not purely prejudicial.  How similar should they be?  Age?  Color?  Religion?  Upbringing?  Gender?  Education?  Sexuality?  Politics?  Birth order?

I found an interesting analog in an anecdote from a new biography of Philip Roth by Blake Bailey, repeated in the New York Times.  "At their first meeting in 2012, a job interview in effect, Roth was every part 'the imperious maestro,' Bailey recalls in the acknowledgments, examining the credentials of this 'gentile from Oklahoma' — what did he know about the Jewish American literary tradition?"  

 

Bailey satisfied Roth, a world-class curmudgeon from a modest, middle-class, Newark, Jewish family, and became his authorized biographer.  Of course, I recognize that there seems to be no shortage of Jewish biographers today, recounting the lives of Jews and Gentiles alike.  On the other hand, Roth was unlikely to be concerned about employment statistics. 

 

Friday, April 2, 2021

On our morning walk in 32° temperature, Stony Brook Steve and I tried to raise the heat by discussing the effort by Latinx activists to stop the naming of a Waukegan, Illinois public school after Barack and Michelle Obama, because of the former president's record on deportation.  https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/ct-lns-waukegan-school-board-st-0401-20210331-i7hg4fwhmbhaxbvcu3qqczvgqe-story.html

Steve wisely suggested resorting to the system that we grew up with, P.S. 33.  I offered the alternative, P.S. To Whom It May Concern.