Update

Just a little note to tell regular readers that I haven't died and gone to ___________. (Fill in the blank) I've had some internet service issues which I hope to have resolved soon, since this was handled in that "never fail" private free market sector. Oops! I guess they DO make mistakes! Hope everyone is well.

Their Entitlement To America, Part Six

Moving Through The Neighborhood

In 1960, a traumatic event occurred in my life…we moved! Tired of the floods and the associated rats they brought,* my parents decided to move several blocks further north to an area not so prone to flooding or to rats…ah, at least not the four-legged kind. My maternal grandparents lived just a little over a block away, and the school I attended was just one street over to the east. My mother actually had spent a good deal of time living just one block west, as that’s where my grandparents lived for quite some time prior to my mother’s marriage in 1937. My paternal grandmother was their neighbor at some point in those times.** The friends I’d grown up with were now several blocks away, which was quite a distance for a kid. Gradually I made new friends, but I’ve still not forgotten my old playmates from all those years ago.

Our new part of the overall neighborhood still had lots of folks of German descent, but we also had a bar and rental apartments across the street owned by Italian immigrants. The husband was much, much older than the wife. From all the stories I heard, it had been an “arranged” marriage, perhaps to get her over here where things were better economically. She was from Taranto in southern Italy, and I’m not sure where he was from in Italy originally, but he had been in the United States for quite some time, although until his dying day, his accent was so heavy, it was difficult to understand him. It was just a few years after World War Two ended that she came over to America. She was a little woman, and the couple had two daughters. Unfortunately one had a type of leukemia that later claimed her life quite a few years later. Whatever the marriage arrangement, she eventually learned the ropes, filed for divorce and got just about everything the man had, including all that property!!! Later, she remarried another Italian immigrant (from northern Italy, but I just forget which city), who must have been in America from youth, as he had just a bit of an accent. They had a son.

A few years later we moved again, a couple of more blocks northward and one street over. By this time, the state was preparing a major, multi-year highway project that would cut through much of the neighborhood, taking a large part of the newer homes along the hillside, which I had mentioned in an earlier segment. Some folks literally had their homes moved to new locations on large trucks, but a chunk of the neighborhood was gone.

* I’m not an expert on rats (the four legged kind), but we always called them “river rats,” as they liked water and they could swim better than Johnny Weissmuller, the former Olympic swimmer of Tarzan fame. Most times, these large rats roamed the banks of the Ohio River, but when the floods came, they moved right along with the water, bringing them to basements all over the neighborhood as they searched for food. This search often led them to enter the actual living quarters of many homes, scaring the hell out of the human inhabitants. Rattraps were a common site in all homes in the area, especially the lower lying, flood-prone sections.

** My dad lived with is father in Baltimore from 1932 until early 1937. My grandparents had divorced in 1930.

WORD HISTORY:
Soon-This goes back to West Germanic "saeno," but I cannot find its Old Germanic predecessor, but Gothic, had "suns." The West Germanic form gave Old English "sona," with a long "o" sound, and it meant "right now, immediately." Other West Germanic forms from Old English times were Old Frisian "son" (long "o"), Old Saxon "sana," and Old High German "san." Apparently these forms all died out, as I can find no forms in the other modern Germanic languages. Gradually the meaning shifted to "in a short time."

Will The Democrats Get With The Program?

The November 3rd elections were relatively minor, as elections go, but the pundits have always looked at such elections to see if they can glean some insight into what Americans are thinking about on a national basis. Let's not forget, in this era of 24/7 news and punditry, "news" has to be made to sound very important, even if it really isn't. After all, the television channels need ad revenue, as do newspapers, magazines and websites. That being said, the three main races that were highlighted nationally were the races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, and the race for an open congressional seat in upstate New York. The election for New York City mayor wasn't really considered to be all that significant, but the much closer than expected outcome did perhaps give some insight into the public's mood.

In Virginia, a pretty reliable Republican state over the past forty years, a Republican trounced a pretty feeble Democratic candidate for the governor's post. Virginia has been more reliable for the Republicans on a presidential basis, as Democrats have been able to win the governorship numerous times, including just recently, as the current governor is a Democrat.

In New Jersey, a pretty reliable Democratic state, a moderately conservative Republican defeated the current Democratic governor, Jon Corzine. While New Jersey certainly tends to vote Democratic in presidential elections, and often for governor, Republicans can and do win the governorship on occasion.

In upstate New York, a Democrat won a congressional seat that had been held by Republicans for over one hundred years. Does it mean anything? Not necessarily, although the Republicans had more of a fight among themselves than with the Democrats. Much of the rightwing of the Republican Party chose not to support the Republican candidate, who incidentally, was not chosen in a primary by the Republican electorate in the district, but rather was picked by a committee of, I believe it was eleven, Republicans. The Republican rightwing chose to support a conservative; thus making this a three-way race for the seat, until, in the waning days of the campaign, the actual Republican candidate dropped out and endorsed the Democrat for election! The Democrat won with just shy of 50% of the vote.

In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg, one of the wealthiest people in the country, won a surprisingly close election against a relative unknown. According to reports, Bloomberg spent in excess of 100 million dollars to win the election. (It must be nice!) Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat until 2001 when he changed registration to Republican. Then in 2007, he became an independent.

So again, what does all of this mean? Well, for one thing, exit polls may tell more of the story than the actual balloting, at least to some extent. From what I saw of these polls, overwhelming majorities named the economy as the most important issue facing the country. Governors and mayors of both parties are on the front lines of the near depression in which the country finds itself. They are forced to make tough decisions to cut spending on programs that have popular support, thus making these budget-cutters highly unpopular. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for instance, was once very popular in California, but his numbers are now in the tank.

At times the national media over analyse elections, and I don't want to do that, but I do want to make note that Corzine in New Jersey was once the head of Goldman-Sachs, one of the top Wall Street firms, and the place he earned much of his wealth (he too is one of the richest people in the country). He lost. In New York City, Bloomberg, also a former Wall Streeter, damned near lost. I hope Americans are waking up to all of the wealthy interests who have come to dominate our lives so much, and who have given us a near depression for all of their greed. Trust me folks, they won't have to worry about paying their electric bill or buying basic foods for their families.

Now, the President and his administration seem NOT to have paid much attention to the old "Clinton dictum," that "It's the economy stupid!!!" After a meltdown on Wall Street, have Democrats done anything to rein in the greed and nuttiness? Hell no!!! The Wall Street banks are now even BIGGER than when they were called "too big to fail." Have the Wall Streeters shown any remorse for the terrible destruction they've brought to the country? Hell no!!! They're scheduled to give themselves ten of billions of dollars in bonuses again! Have the Democrats done anything to separate the casino atmosphere of Wall Street banks and get them back to two separate entities; traditional banking and investments. Hell no!!!

The President chose to push for health care reform, an admirable goal, but not what the country is looking for at this time. This has gone so far, they can't draw back either! The administration and Congress are bogged down in a seemingly endless battle over how to reform the health care system, and neither the President nor Democratic leaders in Congress can even get enough Democrats on board to pass anything. All the while, millions of Americans are out of work. The priorities have gotten misplaced. If the recent elections say anything, it is that Americans are worried for themselves and for the country, and it might not be that Americans are distressed so much by what Democrats have done, but rather more about what they HAVEN'T done! I've noted here many times that the three decade march to the tune of big business and the wealthy interests might just be what dooms the country. I hope that doesn't come true, but we're far from being out of this mess.

Word History:
Whet-This word, more commonly used in the compound "whetstone," and in the expression "whet one's appetite," goes back to the Indo European root "qwed," which had the notion of "sharpening." The Old Proto Germanic offshoot was "khwatjanan," also with the notion of "sharpening," including in the more figurative sense, "sharpen people's feelings; that is, incite or encourage." In Old English it was "hwettan," and the "h" sound eventually died out, or was transposed; after all, we do spell it "wh," although we don't really pronounce the "h" in modern English, choosing to pronounce it like "wet." Old Saxon, the Low German dialect that remained on the Continent after the departure of some Saxons to Britain, and thus was very close to Old English, had "hwat," which meant "sharp." Modern German also still has a form of the word, which is "wetzen," and it too means "to sharpen." So our expression, "to whet one's appetite," means "to sharpen or incite one's appetite."

Their Entitlement To America, Part Five

"Pigs, Cows, Tobacco & Water"

When I was growing up in the neighborhood, the streetcar tracks were still present on our street, but there were no longer any streetcars to use them. Those tracks passed right by our house and made the big turn at the end of the street as they continued over to the next street, which was a mix of commercial and residential. The red brick street, with many a cracked and uneven brick, was eventually paved over, just as was many another such street all over the country. There were railroad tracks only about a block east from where we lived, and more tracks a couple of blocks west, right along the top of the banks of the Ohio River. I saw the changing of the guard, as the old smoke-belching locomotives gave way to the newer model engines, and we kids would stand and wave to the engineers on the old locomotives, just to get them to blow the whistle and toot the horn as they passed by. Then they were gone, forever.

We kids spent a good deal of time watching the trucks pull into the slaughterhouse to unload their doomed cargo of cattle and pigs. The cattle were unloaded on the west side of the slaughterhouse, but the pigs were unloaded just down at the end of our street. The squealing pigs went down a ramp into pens inside the building. Any hog that decided to procrastinate was given a shock by a prod that was hooked up to a battery. We would climb up to the windows of the building to see the pigs enter the pens. They went in as “pigs,” but came out as “pork.” (The meat went right across an alleyway to their packing plant) We knew almost all of the people who worked at the slaughterhouse, and, on occasion, they would hand us some real pork rinds, made right inside. Old Walter was one of the guys who helped unload the animals. We’d go to Walter to find out when the next shipment of animals was due. He wore a cap like a railroad engineer and he had a watch on a chain, which he would pull out, flip open, and say in his own way (Walter had a speech impediment), “Well, the next hogs are due in about an hour.” We kept Walter company on many a day, although as I got older, I realized that he didn’t always see us as “company.” People in the neighborhood didn’t like the smell that emanated from the animals, but eventually the smell was gone, as the slaughterhouse closed. I don’t remember exactly what happened to our old buddy Walter, but I’m sure he’s somewhere at this very moment opening his watch to see how long of a wait he has until the next truckload of pigs or cattle arrives.

In the morning and again twice in the afternoon (five minutes apart) a whistle could be heard all over the entire area. That whistle came from the nearby tobacco plant, just a few blocks away, and it was the sound that work was starting in the morning, and that it was ending in the afternoon. (They made chewing tobacco and pipe tobacco) A lot of people from the neighborhood worked there, and it was common to see people just walking to work with their lunchboxes in hand and a newspaper under their arm. The plant had this huge whistle way atop the building, like on an ocean liner, and the steam that made it sound shrouded the big metal whistle, until the vapor slowly joined the sky. The whistle itself didn’t really bother the people in the area, as everyone was accustomed to it, but the dogs, oh my! Their sensitive ears must have been aching, as every dog in the neighborhood would sit on its hind legs, look skyward, and howwwwwwwwwllllll!!!

The large tobacco plant had a natural spring beneath it. The company had spring water running throughout the plant for their workers, and outside, on the south side of the plant, they had like a big metal sink with running water for the public. People came from miles around with all sorts of bottles, pots and jugs to take water home with them. It was common to have to wait in line to get water there, and when we played baseball at a field just a few blocks away, we’d head over after our games to quench our thirst before heading home, as unlike regular tap water, this water was cool. I don’t know what, if anything, the company did to filter the water, but years later, I believe it was the local health department that made the company turn off the tap. At the moment I can’t recall if some people got sick, but for whatever reason, the water was shut off and the lines of thirsty people were no more. Even years after that, the locally owned company was bought out by a bigger company, and like the people waiting to fill their bottles with spring water, the jobs began to disappear. (A “Word History” is below)

WORD HISTORY:
As-(Just one "s"!) This common word, closely related to "also," developed in the 1300s from Old English "alswa," (also, "eallswa," depending upon dialect) which had a long "a" sound at the end, and meant "just in this way or in the same way." The Old English word was actually a compound consisting of "all," which meant "exactly," and "swa," which meant "so." Eventually the "l" sound died out, although German, a close relative of English, still has "als," and another close relative, Dutch, also has "als." Low German Saxon has "as," and so does West Frisian. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic have forms, but they are more closely related to "also."

What About Foreign Policy?

Regular readers probably wonder at times why I don’t write much about foreign policy. I guess it’s because, since the demise of the Soviet Union, the world is much more complex, or at least it seems to be. From the end of World War Two until circa 1990, there were two main players, superpowers, in world affairs, the Soviet Union and the United States. There were other players, but they essentially supported, or leaned toward, one of the two superpowers, although China began to wean itself from Soviet influence decades ago.* On the surface, like today’s Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, then commonly referred to as “Russia” by most folks, often “seemed” to stake out positions based upon the other superpower’s position on any given issue. “If you like chocolate, then I like vanilla. If you like vanilla, then I like chocolate. If you like chocolate and vanilla, then I like strawberry.” In fact, just as with today’s Republicans and Democrats, there were deep philosophical divisions, but telling the “good guys” from the “bad guys” was not difficult. There were meetings between the superpowers over the decades, and there were even agreements between the two, which gradually reduced tensions; the key word being “gradually.”**

When I was a kid in grade school, there was a major confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. It had to do with Russian missiles being deployed in Cuba, which is only about ninety miles from the U.S. President Kennedy challenged this Soviet deployment by sending American ships to essentially surround Cuba, and eventually the Soviets backed down. For days the world held its breath as the tension mounted, and it seemed that missiles would be flying in every direction at any moment. In the end, sanity prevailed, as both superpowers saw the tremendous downside to pushing “the button” to launch a nuclear attack on the other.

The two great nuclear powers had big differences, but neither side was stupid. Instead of using a major war to settle matters (probably for all time, if you get my drift), they used the world map as a kind of chessboard. Europe was at the center of most of the tension, as the Soviets had puppet governments running the countries of Eastern Europe, and the U.S. and its Western European allies kept forces at the ready to face any Soviet-led incursion into central Europe, most notably through West Germany.*** Further, each side tried to get “one up” on the other in technology. The point is, neither the Soviets nor the Americans wanted to end civilization by starting a nuclear war.

For years the two sides spent all sorts of money to build bigger bombs and bigger missiles to deliver those bombs. Many Americans, and I’m sure many “Russians,” as I’ll call them, wished that the other side would “see reason” and give in or just go away. In the end, the Soviets saw their Eastern European empire collapse, and then their very own rule over “Russia” go down for the count. Americans and “The West” rejoiced at the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We had won!!! Or had we?

With only ONE superpower left, the rise of fundamentalist Islam presented itself to the world, including Western Europe, the United States and Russia**** (and more recently to China!) Unlike the Soviets and the Americans of “old,” these people were driven, not by a true political or economic ideology, but by religious zealousness (I’d say nuttiness!) and by an intense hatred of things “western” or “modern,” (I’d say they seem to see the two as the same), although nutcases as they are, they have no problem using modern technology, like computers or cell phones, to carry out their assault on the modern world.

In recent times, we have a Muslim nation, Pakistan, that developed nuclear weapons. We have a bunch of Islamic religious fanatics who would LOVE to get their hands on these weapons. We have another Muslim nation, Iran, led by a religious nutcase, that appears to be working toward developing nuclear weapons. If you thought the Soviets were a threat to the world, wait until one of these religious nuts gets a hold of nuclear weapons. To me it is only a matter of time. Any bunch of nutcases who would send suicide bombers into schools, businesses, crowded streets and plazas, will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons ANYWHERE. With their poisonous religious fanaticism, this will NOT be like the dealings between nuclear giants, America and the Soviet Union. Most Americans and Russians had rational thought processes, and both sides realized the potential consequences of a nuclear exchange. These nuts will most likely welcome the consequences of using nuclear weapons. LOOK OUT WORLD!

* From the time of the Communist takeover in the latter part of the 1940s until President Nixon’s major trip to China in the early 1970s, China was referred to in the United States as “Red China.” The U.S. and its allies viewed the legitimate government of China to be on the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan, which lies just off the China coast.

** Here again it was Nixon who began serious talks with the Soviets on a wide range of issues, not the least of which was regarding nuclear weapons.

*** For those unaware, after the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, Germany was divided into occupation zones, with the Soviets in the eastern part of Germany, and with the U.S., Britain, and France with their own zones in western Germany. As the Germans were gradually given increasing amounts of self-rule, the western areas were commonly referred to in the western press as “West Germany,” although the Germans called the country, “Bundes Republik Deutschland,” or “BDR” (Federal Republic of Germany). See the “Word History” below) In contrast, the press referred to the eastern provinces as “East Germany,” although the Communist government called the country “Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik,” or “DDR” (The German Democratic Republic). The “West” eventually became totally self-governing, although with major military forces from the above listed countries being present, and in the “East,” the Communist government ruled that area on a day-to-day basis, but with the Soviets dominating foreign policy matters. That is not to say that the Western Powers didn’t have a big influence on West German foreign policy.

**** The Soviet Union was the inheritor of the “Old Russian Empire,” and as such assumed control over many Muslims, primarily in the far southeastern European part of their empire, and in the south Asian areas.

WORD HISTORY:
Bind-This word traces back to the Indo European root "bhendh," which had the notion of "tying up something." This passed into Old Germanic as a stem "bind," with a short "i" sound. This in turn gave Old English "bindan," with the same short "i." Later, a long "i" sound developed in the pronunciation, supposedly in southern England, and that eventually came to be our modern version. A noun form developed during the 1300s, and is also represented by the form "bine," used for part of the name of some plants, like "Woodbine." Hopefully I'll remember to do the other forms of this word in future histories. The verb is quite common in the other Germanic languages, as, for example, German and Dutch have "binden," Swedish has "binda," and Danish has "binde." The German word "Bund(es)," used in the article above, is related, and is really our word "bound." A "Bund," in German, is a noun meaning "bound together for political purpose," and is ususally translated into English as "confederation or federation." In the above, it is adjectival in use, and is translated as "federal."