Devshirme

The intrepid Sal Ferriera has hooked me up with some good follow-up links on the issue of what language was spoken when St. Paul landed in Malta – check them out here and here (obrigado, Sal!).

The common wisdom is that Arabic, as spread during the onset of Islam, only displaced other Semitic languages but never really dislodged non-Semitic tongues.  Makes sense, but I would argue it never totally displaced the Semitic languages either.  People in Iraq and Morocco do not, for example, speak Central Arabian Arabic.  They largely speak their original language with a thick Arabic veneer.  When Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ movie came out some years back I went to see it with a group from the seminary, and I was curious if my Levantine school chums would be able to understand the Aramaic spoken in the movie.  Despite the European pronunciation from the characters, they did indeed understand most of what was spoken.  Levantine Arabic is pretty much Aramaic (more properly Assyrian) with a huge influence of Arabic proper.

Using this model it is quite likely that the original Phoenician tongue on Malta has survived and developed through the years and absorbed vocabulary and influences from other languages.  I imagine Paul would have either spoken Aramaic with his Punic interlocutors and eventually come to an understanding, or he would have had a strained, very formal conversation in biblical Hebrew and hopefully both parties would figure it out.

The other day I mentioned Lee Habeeb in a post and pointed out that he was a UVa grad (School of Law, actually).  Well, I occasionally put up poetry from Edgar Allan Poe here, and I would be remiss not point out that Poe attended the University of Virginia for a brief period, although things did not end well for him there.  It is Sunday night and I don’t have much in the tank for blogging, so let me leave you in his capable hands:

Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone –
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:
Be silent in that solitude
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee — and their will
Shall then overshadow thee: be still.

For the night — tho’ clear — shall frown –
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given –
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever :

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish –
Now are visions ne’er to vanish –
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more — like dew-drop from the grass:

The breeze — the breath of God — is still –
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy — shadowy — yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token –
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries! –

I have been participating in the Preachers Institute “read the New Testament in the 40 days leading up to Christmas” project.  It is quite enjoyable and edifying.  I tend to concentrate my scripture readings on the Old Testament, so this exercise has provided me with a refresher course on parts of the NT that I do not read very often.  In finishing up Acts the other day, I came across the episode where Paul gets shipwrecked on Malta.  Maltese, famously, is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script, but modern Maltese took form after the Arabs conquered the island during a later wave of Muslim conquest.  So what language was spoken on Malta when Paul landed there?  Phoenician of some sort?  Latin?  Does anyone know?  I imagine Paul would have been able to adapt to whatever Semitic tongue that may have been spoken there, and could certainly communicate in Greek and Latin (he was a Roman citizen).  What was proto-Maltese?

This is a very cool article by Lee Habeeb (UVa grad!) on A Charlie Brown Christmas and how this beloved program almost never happened.  It is an interesting story, but the most surprising thing for me was that the (I imagine) typically square and unadventurous TV execs and sponsors were scared that Linus’s recitation of a passage from the gospel of Luke was going to be controversial and a disaster.  I first saw the show in the late ’70s as a little kid, and I recognized even then that there was something old-fashioned about Snoopy and the gang, and that the program was very different than much of the other kids fare on TV.  I always figured the Christian message was something from the past – who would have thought that it was controversial in 1965? I understand things were changing at that point but I would have thought the networks would not be swept up in the cultural change until well after that.

One of the reasons that I think Mad Men (which I thoroughly enjoy watching) gets so much buzz is because it depicts a 1960s that has largely been forgotten.  The ’60s in popular mythology conjure up Woodstock, hippies, protests, colorful art and music, and other such things.  Mad Men captures the early and mid-60s and indeed what much of mainstream America was like in the late ’60s.  Woodstock was one thing, but take a look at baseball cards from 1970 (which feature photos from the year before).  Not an afro or long hairdo in sight.

I generally don’t discuss politics, and I certainly don’t venture much onto the topic of Greek politics, but I have found myself recently talking about the drachma, the old Greek currency replaced by the Euro some years back.  I have even come up with a nice little catch-phrase, although I suppose I heard it elsewhere first: “The drachma was just fine for several thousand years”.  I pipe up with this, as you can imagine, during talks about Greece and the EU.

The Wiki article gives a pretty good idea of the history of this unit of money.  I always knew that the Armenian dram derived its name from the drachma but never made the connection with the dirham of Morocco and the UAE.  I have a pretty decent collection of coins from all over the world.  It started when my dad would bring back change from his business trips, and it is now at the point where if I find out someone is going to a country whose coins I don’t have I ask if they can bring back a few for me.  The UAE coins are in the part of the collection still at my ‘rents; I need to reclaim these along with other stuff that I have there (a process that will probably never end).

The coin names likely spread due to Alexander the Great’s travels.  It is amazing how remnants of his conquests and his successors’ rule have survived, whether it is in the DNA of the Kalash, places names like Kandahar, literary expressions like “Gordian knot”, or coinage from places like Morocco where Alexander never set foot.

I was driving through Lincoln Square today when I saw a crew representing Occupy Worcester.  There were about 5-7 people on the sidewalk near the WWI monument.  One of the demonstrators carried a large red flag with the famous image of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.  I normally do not engage people in political talk, but when I saw Che’s face I had to say something.  Fortunately, due to late afternoon Worcester traffic, I was able to idle for a minute and chat with the gentleman bearing the Che flag.  I rolled down the window and he came over.  I had to ask – why do you have Che on your flag?  He answered that he was for “the people” and his philosophy was in line with the Occupy Worcester people.  I told him the reason I asked, and I disagree but respect his politics on this, is that Che, for all his revolutionary fervor, was a brutal mass murderer.  I did not get into whether Che’s actions were beneficial for those on whose behalf he advocated.  At this point the light changed and I had to drive; I wanted to continue the chat so I said I would park and come back.  I found a legal space several blocks away and did my usual  quick-walk back to the encampment.  The small group gathered around me as my new friend and I continued our conversation.

I am not sure if this group is representative of the whole Occupy movement, but our discussion, which was calm and cordial, was distressing.  I said that Che committed violence not just in the theater of warfare but for political means, including the lining up of political enemies and their summary execution (he also executed priests!).  This pretty much amounts to killing those with whom you disagree.  The occupy group made the argument that the “kleptocracy” (to use their term)  keep people from having health care or homes, and they are really killers in their own right and may well deserve death.  This is scary stuff.  I asked them if they thought violence was justified in their struggle and they said it may well be necessary and that the incidents of violence at other Occupy events throughout the country were “caused by the cops”.  I tried to point out that killing those with whom you merely disagreed on political matters, no matter how serious, was just plain wrong, but they resisted this line of argument.  After saying that, as a clergyman with a flock entrusted to my care I am a (minor) authority figure, I asked them if I may be a target.  They said that if it came to that I may well be.

Things ended cordially – I had to go visit someone in the hospital and left.  I may well return to engage them in more conversation on the Che matter.  I did ask them if they would carry banners with Stalin, Mussolini or other such figures, all of whom were for “the people” but did many unsavory things.  For articles on Che as a mass murder check out Jay Nordlinger’s writings here, and for the same from a left-wing perspective check out this from the New Republic.

These photos were given to me to put in the church archives by Connie K.  At least one is dated 1961.  Some are partially labelled in the back with names, but most aren’t.  Recognize anyone?

I am not much of a fan of Disney in its current incarnation, but I cannot deny a certain fascination with its history and influence on popular culture.  Walt Disney himself remains an interesting figure, and I cannot deny that I have good memories of going to Disneyworld and Epcot, watching Fantasia, etc.  This article on the origins of Disneyland in California, Disney’s vision and the contrast with old amusement parks, the struggle to get everything done correctly, and so forth is a great, great read.

If you have not watched Fantasia, by the way, make it your next movie to rent or watch on iTunes or Netflix or whatever.  It is like a classical music version of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine – great and varied animation with stunning music.

I was chatting with Fr. Peter this morning and he casually mentioned how they “caught Whitey”.  WHOA!  I had no clue – I don’t watch tv and had not been online last night or in the morning – that the FBI had grabbed Whitey Bulger yesterday.  To give you an idea of how long he has been a fugitive – I was a senior in college, so we are talking 16 years.  The wiki article has a nice section on his fugitive years.  At one point the FBI even thought he might be in Uruguay like a Nazi fugitive!

I have to say that the first thing that entered my mind, after the initial feeling of surprise and delight, was “I wonder if he will give up the location or the story of the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum stolen art???”.   Wouldn’t that be something?  Of course, this is assuming he was involved.  I recently read (on the NookColor) a very exciting mystery novel about the theft called Among Thieves by David Hosp.  Bulger is a big character in this book and his portrayal, I imagine, is pretty close to real life.  One detail that sticks out is he wanted to be called Jimmy rather than Whitey (and he seemed to get what he wanted).  The book has him, the IRA, and a bunch of others connected to the theft.  I then read a non-fiction account of the theft called The Gardner Heist – although it is non-fiction it too is a page-turner.  I highly recommend both of these books, and if you do read both I suggest you read them in the same order I did – fiction first followed by non-fiction.  The second book only mentions Bulger once, but of course until the crime is solved we will not know all of the details (and even then we may never get the whole story).

We all have a set of events where we remember exactly where we were when we heard about them.  I don’t know if today will make the grade, but it is indeed huge news and very good news – Bulger was/is by all accounts a horrible man.  As for the events in my lifetime where the memory of finding out is indelibly stamped upon me, they include President Reagan being shot, the Challenger explosion, Magic Johnson announcing he was HIV+, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and 911.  Maybe the Osama Bin Laden capture will also join the ranks – we will see.

Vaia recently hit a major American childhood milestone – she received a Mr. Potato Head toy.  I myself had one of these, and for all I know my ‘rents still have it in the attic.  Although I have fond memories of this toy, I think of it more for something that happened long after I stopped playing with it.  When I was a freshman in high school there was a small item in the paper about how Mr. Potato Head was losing his pipe to discourage kids from smoking.  The Wiki article, which is excellent – who knew MPH was the first toy marketed on TV directly to kids rather than their parents? – says the pipe went when he became the spokesman for the Great American Smokeout (celebrated each year when I was at the seminary by my friends and me,  joined by sympathetic faculty, mirthfully puffing on cigars).  I remember that this struck me as ridiculous at the time, and it still does – who wants to smoke a pipe because Mr. Potato Head does?  At the same time a sister who taught at my high school started a campaign to change the team nickname from Red Raiders because it was “offensive”.  The campaign fizzled quickly and she was, for whatever reason, teaching elsewhere the next year.  These two episodes were my first introduction to the culture of political correctness.  Long live Mr Potato Head and his pipe!