Seriously??

Words fail me. Via John Fea: The librarians of Citrus County, Florida wanted to buy a digital subscription to The New York Times, but the country commission will not let them do it because, as everyone knows, The New York Times is “fake news.” Yes, this is a true story. Here is a taste of Antonia Noori Farzan’s reporting at The Washington Post:

The librarians of Citrus County, Fla., had what seemed like a modest wish: A digital subscription to the New York Times. For about $2,700 annually, they reasoned, they could offer their roughly 70,000 patrons an easy way to research and catch up on the news.

But when their request came before the Citrus County commission last month, local officials literally laughed out loud. One commissioner, Scott Carnahan, declared the paper to be “fake news.”

<idle musing>
I can't even begin. You don't have to agree with the NYT, but they are trying to do a decent job. If you live in an echo chamber, how will you grow? Oh, that's right, the goal isn't to grow, it is to stay safe. Sorry, I forgot that. Now it all makes sense. Of course, when the ostrich sticks its head in the sand, it's safe, right? If you can't see it, it doesn't exist right?
</idle musing>

About that submission thing...

Jim West just posted a hilarious picture of Jael pegging Sisera (pun intentional). That got me thinking about the current teaching whereby women are to submit to their husbands in all things.

The scripture is clear that there was an alliance between Heber the Kenite and Jabin (Judg 4:17). That being so, by killing Sisera, Jael was being rebellious against her husband! She should be up for discipline, not praise!

Something isn't right there...and I sincerely doubt that it is the scripture!

An explosion

Last Saturday put an end to the garden for the year, except for the kale, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and kohlrabi. They're a bit more cold hardy than others. But the tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, etc. all bit the dust as the temperature plunged to 21ºF. Even the stuff in the hoop house got bit.

So this week has been garden cleanup. The tomatoes have all been brought inside to the basement to ripen slowly. Last year I ate the last one the week before Christmas. Sure, they don't taste as good as fresh from the vine, but they're still better than those red things in the store that they call tomatoes.

Quite a few of the tomatoes were almost to the point of being ripe, so last night I canned 7 quarts of stewed tomatoes. For those of you who don't know, part of the process of canning is processing the quart jars in a pot of boiling water for about an hour. The instructions say 50 minutes, but I usually prefer to err on the side of caution and give them an hour. Then you pull the jars out and let them seal. Debbie loves to hear the "pop" when they seal.

As I said, I was canning 7 quarts of tomatoes last night. After they went into the boiling water bath, I went into the other room to do some editing. About 50 minutes into the processing, there was a huge Boom! Debbie yelled at me to come quickly because the pot was boiling over.

That's an understatement! I've been canning now for the better part of 40 years, and I've never seen anything like it before. One of the rings holding the lid on had let loose. The jar was intact, but the boiling tomatoes inside had acted like a cannon, shooting the lid and ring into the lid of the pot. The lid had actually moved over about an inch, and tomato was all over the top of the stove and down the front of it, onto the floor, and all over the rug!

Sometimes a jar will have a weak spot in it and break, but then you just get tomatoes (and glass) in the canning water. Sure it's a pain to clean up, but it isn't a mess like this! It took us the better part of 1/2 hour, working together, to clean it up.

The jar is still intact. But I threw that ring away! In feeling it after the fact, I could tell that the threads weren't as deep as normal. What a way to discover that, though! Gardening, hazardous to your health!

Have you asked these questions?

Just ran across this post: 28 Questions Every English Language and Linguistics Student Has Asked.

My favorite is number 26: Are half of these terms even real words?

But number 27 is a close second: Why does Microsoft Word not appreciate my language skills? There are red and green lines everywhere.

Number 27 is the story of my life as I edit all kinds of interesting stuff with lots of technical terms. And that is also why number 26 is so relevant: I'm not always sure what is a typo and what is a technical term. Yesterday I had to e-mail an author to check on a word that I hadn't ever seen before. It turned out to be a typo, but it looked enough like a technical term—and was placed in a context where it could well have been—that I couldn't be sure!

Who or whom?

I'm in the midst of editing a book—as usual!—and ran into a nice little phrase that made me stop and actually mentally diagram the sentence. It contains a few things that make you stop to think. Here's the phrase:

“...remind them of who they are…”

What's the problem, you ask? Shouldn't it just be "whom"? After all, it's the object of the preposition "of," right?

Well, yes and no. The whole phrase "who they are" is the object of the preposition "of" not just "who."

OK, you say, but it still should be "whom" because it is the object of "are," right?

Nope. "Are" is a copulative (linking) verb and takes a subjective case predicate (for those of you with Greek or Latin, a predicate nominative). So, it should be "who" as the subjective complement of "are."

Let's create a different clause with the same construction.

It comes down the to the problem of who is Santa Claus.

So you see, Virginia, there really can be an objective Santa Clause...

I know, it's terrible...

Why not?

The celestial diviners who employed the Ideal Calendar were perfectly aware of this fact and relied on it to generate calendrical anomalies that were considered ominous. Though it was modeled on an idealized concept of time division, this did not mean it could not be modified. When intercalation schemes, for example, are mentioned in celestial divination texts, they have little practical calendrical value and instead tend to reference the aversion of a bad portent by changing the month in which it took place. For example, the namburbî ritual involving intercalation described in The Diviner’s Manual 66–71 is specifically designed to avert evil rather than properly align the lunar and tropical calendars.—Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East, pages 30-31, footnote

<idle musing>
I love it! Don't want the bad omen to happen this month? Simple, just change the month! Good thing we can't do than anymore—I can just see some politicians manipulating the calendar to make the bad news old news : )
</idle musing>

Modern constructs

The phrase celestial science is meant to be inclusive of all of these activities [astronomy, astrology, and omen-based divination]. My use of this last phrase is a practical concession to the lack of consistency in the application of the terminology in both ancient Near Eastern studies and science history in general, and an indication of the fact that these sharp delineations between activities are essentially modern constructs.—Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East, page 26

<idle musing>
Indeed. The ancient world didn't make a distinction between the secular and the sacred. If you read ancient documents realizing this, you will be confused by the continual references to checking the omens. Armies would camp across from each other and not engage in battle unless the omens were favorable—especially the Romans.

Can you imagine the U.S. Army—or any other "modern" army—not engaging in a battle because the liver of the animal sacrificed this morning didn't have good readings? I can just imagine it:

Good morning, Mr. President. I'm giving you the latest update on the D-Day invasion. We have delayed it for at least 3 days.
Yes, sir, I know that will put the landing boats at risk and cause the soldiers to have to run up the exposed beach longer because of the tide.
Yes, sir, I know that casualties will likely increase dramatically and that more boats will be sunk.
Yes, sir, I know it puts all of our plans for the last 4 years on hold.
Yes, sir, I understand that the public is getting impatient.
Yes, sir, I know we've had this conversation for the last 5 years and that it is now 1949, but the omens were bad again this morning!

Just an
</idle musing>

Brutal, but true

The astral interpretations of the pan-Babylonianists became another lovely theory that was brutally murdered by facts.—Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East, pages 5-6

<idle musing>
Ouch! I know a few other theories that could use the same treatment...
</idle musing>

Spring!

Kinda...

The gusts were up to 48 MPH last night—glad we took our walk earlier! It was a beautiful day, though. The snow was coming down in big flakes, 28°F, calm, just gorgeous!

Of course, the wind made some changes. The backyard now has drifts up to six feet again and the path to the compost bin is filled in...

Fun game

We hear a lot about the "liberal mainstream media," but did you know how much media clout the hyper-conservative Murdoch owns? You can find out by playing this fun little game:



What's left? :(

Strange book description

As I've mentioned many times, I get lots of book catalogs—I'm a book buyer, after all! Well, today I got a catalog from a well-known distributor, displaying their wares. I happened to glance at the description of a book with a strong dispensational, pre-tribulational, Israel of now is the Israel of prophecy, Iraq is the source of all evil, etc., viewpoint. After a paragraph describing the way the end will come, they ended with these sentences:

With the Kingdom's inauguration will come a cessation of global hostilities. Peace alas!

<idle musing>
Bad proof reading, or Freudian slip?
</idle musing>