Friday, October 03, 2008
Agrestic Living is Good
From a Times story: "The Times of London asked readers to vote for the word they most felt should be spared from oblivion and attracted more than 11,000 votes in a week. The word embrangle (to confuse or entangle) won with 1,434 votes, while fubsy (short and stout) came in a distant second." After describing some of the abandoned words that are still used in some places, they said, "Apparently, one man's linguistic recrement (waste, refuse) is another man's treasure."
Here for your pleasure is the list. I've highlighted my favorites:
- Abstergent: Cleansing
- Agrestic: Rural
- Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
- Caducity: Perishableness
- Caliginosity: Dimness
- Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else
- Embrangle: To confuse or entangle
- Exuviate: To shed
- Fatidical: Prophetic
- Fubsy: Squat
- Griseous: Somewhat grey
- Malison: A curse
- Mansuetude: Gentleness
- Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman
- Niddering: Cowardly
- Nitid: Bright
- Olid: Foul-smelling
- Oppugnant: Combative
- Periapt: An amulet
- Recrement: Refuse (waste - not as in to decline)
- Roborant: Tending to fortify
- Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
- Vaticinate: Prophesy
- Vilipend: To treat with contempt
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Draka
Have you ever heard of the series of books written by S.M. Stirling concerning the alternate world of the Draka. The Draka are a people consisting mostly of loyalists and slave owners who settle in South Africa after the USofA Revolution. They manage to conquer the rest of Africa, followed by Asia, Europe and eventually the Americas. I think the stories are great and have re-read them several times. The first, Marching Through Georgia, is the best and the rest seem to lose a little as the series winds on. (BTW, I think the Georgia in the title can be thought of the Georgia in both Europe and the Americas).
The stories bring up some interesting thoughts about slavery and cruelty and power. Is slavery all that bad compared to other free life styles? Does being a mom living free in Darfur watching your kid starve to death beat being a slave who is housed and fed? And how does what degree of slavery matter? How do you balance a domestic slave cleaning a house twelve hours a day with a slave in a mine being worked to death in ten years?
How about power? Is a Draka who conquers for the sake of conquering and kills to conquer better than a Nazi who kills for the sake of racial purity? Is there a difference? Depending on the roll of the dice being a slave to a Draka might not be all that bad. You work 12 hours a day, get fed, watered and have visits to the vet as needed. As a free American, many people work 12 hours a day, eat and try to afford a doctor. OK, some would argue you're free, but to what end?
I have a pretty good life now. A couple miles away people are living in dumps with bullets coming through their raggedy walls, and will be lucky to graduate high school and have a one-in-ten chance of ending up in jail before they're 30, and whose idea of fun is watching the drug dealer on the corner making change.
Sometimes you have to wonder just how much freedom is too much?
Labels: crime, government, reading
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Destroyer
There's a paperback series with a large number of volumes called The Destroyer. It was started in the 70s and has to do (to make a long story short) with a cop framed for murder, put through a fake execution and then trained as a secret assassin for the U.S. government. His trainer is Chiun, who is the current Master of Sinanju, the first martial art that was started in Korean a couple of thousand years ago.
It's actually a pretty good series full of humor and cutting remarks about the U.S. and many of its foibles. I just finished episode #30, Mugger's Blood. This was an interesting tale in its take on black America. I googled the title and was a little surprised there wasn't more feedback about it. The story skewers quite directly street and ghetto blacks and New York city.
I think there's something like 115+ volumes. There was a movie sometime ago about this bunch. It was pretty universally panned, but I enjoyed it. Joel Grey actually plays North Korean Chiun and as far as I'm concerned, hits the character spot on. It's not a great movie, but clearly follows the books in spirit. This is one of the few movies where I think having read the books enables you to enjoy the movie more.
Anyway, I'm working my way through the series, up to volume 31 right now and just thought I'd mention it. And there's a faint memory of having written about it before on this blog.
