Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

According to the pundits who write zoo labels, seals feed their babies a milk that is “very rich”.

“In celebration of the working person’s holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration’s plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.

I’m sure you already knew that — if you happened to have run across page 15,576 of the Federal Register.”

For the rest of  this story, check out Greg Palast’s story for August 29th….

Yesterday, I explored the Falun Copper Mine–miles of cold and dimly-lit tunnels where the Swedes started tunneling and exploring more than 1000 years ago. Our tour guide looked just like Legolas. Instead of noble faraway look, he had a chuckle and a sense of humor, but I think that is a definite improvement.

I’ve been spending time here in the footsteps of Carolus Linnaeus–http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html–a Swede who created the double-barreled scientific naming system that Home sapiens has been using ever since. He did other good stuff too–for example, the original Centigrade temperature system had water freezing at 100 degrees and boiling at 0 degrees. Linnaeus had the sense to turn that scale upside down.  

Now, I’m not digressing, but do you have a big table for people to eat around–even a room or a big area of the kitchen devoted to housing that great big dinner table you need only when you’ve decided to feed a bunch of guests? Well, I do, but Linnaeus was smarter than that.

Linnaeus had a bunch of little tables around the edges of his dining room. Only when dinner time rolled around did he move just as many tables as he needed that very night into the middle of the dining room. He would stick together a bunch of little tables to make a big table exactly the right size that night.

Okay, forbid me for harping on this but the idea makes so much sense, I can’t believe Linnaeus thought of it 250 years ago and nobody bothered to tell me about it! A big dinner table that takes up a big fat space spends all its spare time bumping people who try to walk through said space. Furthermore, if you have 4 little tables instead of one honking big one, you can make 3 little separate messes–errr, I mean “work areas”–on the separate tables you don’t need that night.

So I’m not spending all my time gazing at Legolas and Galadriel lookalikes–although that would be tempting. I’m computing how much money Peter Jackson could have saved on blue contact lenses and platinum hair dye if he he’d come to Sweden….

Some American “patriot”  insulted everyone’s favorite Netherlander by calling him a “German pig,” and Niek understandably feels–well–insulted.

One problem is, we don’t have any rude epithets for the Dutch.  I’ve heard people abuse the English as snobby, the Irish as drinkers, the Polish as stupid.

My mother was French-Canadian, and we lived close enough to Canada so that lots of our townspeople were too. When somebody drove in a way she didn’t like, she’d yell, “Look at that frog-eating Frenchman!”

But the Dutch?

Okay, guys, I lived near Amsterdam for three months once, so here are some stereotyped remarks about the Dutch. They are funny, healthy, and tall compared to me. They ride huge battered bikes at scary speeds. They shake hands a lot. They kiss three times instead of two. They are kind but not tactful, or perhaps it would be better to say they are very direct and clear about what they want and what they think. On patriotic and soccer-related occasions, you can see kids wearing orange in some very remarkable ways.

I must say these stereotypes of “the Dutch” don’t seem to suggest any useful ethnic insults…

Anyway, people who insult other people’s origins are jerks. Of course, I don’t include my mom in that category, because everyone knows moms get to make their own rules. Hey, that includes me!

Good. I hereby rule that nobody on earth gets to do any more patriotic insulting of anybody else. And if they do… “I’m made of rubber, you’re made of glue–What you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

Dave Winer’s email is busted again, so I guess he didn’t get my request for a correction to his blast at Dean:

The first candidate that helps voters publish their own stories and ideas and drive the campaign is the one who really captures the energy of the Web. So far Dean has used the Web to raise money to spend on big rallies and TV ads. That’s using the Web in kind of a nasty way. But he also helps people find what’s good inside themselves. That’s why people give him the money. I want a candidate to use the Web to listen. It doesn’t take much money to do that.

Howard Dean’s campaign has been deeply involved in using the web to listen since before I ever heard of Howard Dean. Dean staffers and enthusiasts share ideas in a bunch of Yahoo Groups–by now there are <a href = “http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=Howard%20Dean&ss=1”>525 Yahoo groups</a> where supporters get together, address issues, share ideas, etc. The Dean team has an official campaign blog and an unofficial one too. Howard Dean also spent time as a guest-blogger on Larry Lessig’s blog.

Dave, Dean is listening to voters. I hope you will retract your claim that he isn’t. A lot of people read your blog, and I hope you read mine, since my email is lost in the mist.

Q. What does the optometrist say on his honeymoon?
A. “Do you like it like this–or like this? Good. Now, like this–or like this?”

I adore traveling, and part of what I love is finding out just how wrong I am about things I once imagined were always true.

Take kissing, for example. In the chilly parts of New England I grew up in, public kisses involve one warm peck on the cheek, given by parent to child, or by child to parent. Imagine my deer-in-the-headlights surprise when friendly strangers from Paris or New York* assumed I understood the “kiss kiss” hello.

Okay, I got to enjoy the “kiss kiss” hello. Then (wouldn’t you know!) I end up in the Netherlands where they do “kiss kiss kiss!” Until I caught on, I was the Queen of Kissus Interruptus.

Do you think I know how to buy a newspaper? Sure. In the US, the dialogue goes like this:

Me: Hi–just this paper, please.
Nick: Okay, it’s a dollar.
Me: Thanks, okay, here you are. (giving him a dollar).
Nick: Thanks–have a good day.
Me: Yeah, you too–bye!

Now, in Holland, my normal behavior is downright rude. Instead of a mere “hi”, I ought to say “Good afternoon.” Then, only after Niek** has responded with “Good afternoon,” can we begin to talk money and newspapers.

Suppose I’m in Sweden, and buying a paper from Nils. Well, my normal method is wrong, for the opposite reason. Here’s how you buy a newpaper in Stockholm:

Me: This paper.
Nils: 10 kronor.
Me: Here. (giving him 10 kronor.)
Nils: Here (giving me the paper.)

In Sweden, doing it my way–or the Dutch way–makes me sound like that amorous optometrist–so well-meaning, and so totally wrong.

* To NH kids, Manhattan is just as foreign as Paris.
** No, not that Niek!–some other Dutch Niek who is not a famous babe magnet and sells newspapers.

p.s. Speaking of eye doctors, congratulations to Halley! Check out her blissful awakening after her cataract operation.

“Language Emergency Kit”–ten rock-bottom minimum sentences for any trip:

1. Where’s the bathroom? (vahr air too-a-lett’-en?)
2. Thank you very much. (tuck saw mewcket)
3. Please. (var so good)
4. Yes. (yah.)
5. No. (nay.)
6. No, thank you. (nay, tuck)
7. I’m sorry. (fur-lawt’ may).
8. My husband is vegetarian. (min man air vegetaree-ansk’.)
9. Without meat? (eutan churt?)
10. Where can I access the Internet? (vahr kun yahg komma in paw internet?)

Two bonus sentences, in case you don’t have a vegetarian husband:

“Can we sit in a non-smoking area?” (kun vee sitta veed boord fur ickeh-rurkareh?)
“That’s beautiful.” (den air vack’-er)

I’ve long been a fan of the Swedish chef school of linguistics, but since I leave for Sweden on Tuesday it may just be time to gather my Swedish language emergency kit.

Those who remember my
quest for instant Czech won’t be surprise to hear that–thanks to the LCS Hockey Association’s website–I now can say things in Swedish that would surprise you:

Han finns de action? – Where is the action?

Har du sedd min kaslonger? – Have you seen my pants?

Langa de vin. – Pass the wine.

Jag var i Cleveland den vecka, officer. – I was in Cleveland that week, officer.

Du ar a illa skona kvinnor. – You are a very beautiful woman.

Skulle du lik att se de hem av a ensam, ensam man? – Would you like to see the home of a lonely, lonely man?

Nej, nej, ej de paprika sprej! – No, no, not the pepper spray!

At least I don’t have to learn Viking-coping phrases like “What a big ax!” and “I have no gold coins, but may I offer you this fine Timex watch?”

Employers who fired people for blogging include “a Washington DC-based non-profit“,
the Houston Chronicle,
CollegeClub.com, and probably many more!

“Memorials in her honor can be made to any organization working for the removal of President Bush.”

Sally Baron’s kids wanted to honor their mother’s feisty life and opinions–
by supporting a cause she really cared about.
Sally Baron married a miner and raised six kids in northern Wisconsin. She worked as a factory assembly worker, a waitress, a cook and a dietician. And that’s not all:

“She was the den mother. She was the 4-H leader. She is the lady that taught all of us how to swim, how to play softball, how to camp,” said her son, Joe Baron, who owns a plumbing business in Prairie du Sac.

Sally is the kind of person the DLC Democrats hope to woo back to voting for Democrats by explaining that not *all* Democrats hate soldiers and babies, and only a *few* Democrats love drugs and crime.
Sally was just a lot smarter than they figured. Most people are. Sally watched CNN and C-SPAN and hollered and swore and called Bush a “whistle ass.”

“She thought he was a liar,” Baron’s daughter, Maureen Bettilyon, said. “I think his personality, just standing there with that smirk on his face, and acting like he’s this holy Christian, that’s what really got her.”

Her son Joe Baron agreed. “She just didn’t trust that a big corporate guy was going to be doing what was best for her. She just really didn’t trust him,” he said.

Amen, Sally Baron! Your kids are proud of you, and you should be proud of your kids!

Joe Lieberman, any chance you’re listening?