Does it seem to you that the Wall Street protesters are different now than they were in the short few days since they started?

At first they said they were protesting corporate greed.  I know that sounds good, but I don’t know if they mean that businesses should not make a profit, or that personal greed is okay, or what.  They are also protesting social inequality, and I’m not sure if they are advocating redistribution of wealth or guaranteed equality of outcomes or what.

In any case, as their numbers have grown, they have been joined by union-backed organizations and such groups as the Strong Economy for All Coalition, the Working Families Party, and New York Communities for Change.  And some of the signs being carried are of an entirely different nature from the ones carried by the first small group.

I suspect this group has the same problem as the Tea Party.  Started by a small group of people, their purpose is so appealingly and vaguely stated that masses of frustrated people look at them and see what they want to see. They run to join them because they want so badly to believe that this new movement embodies their own favorite cause and has the cure for their feelings of impotence.

The result, of course, is that the movement quickly loses whatever focus it had, and is diluted to the point of being unrecognizable.

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And so we in the northern hemisphere come to the shortest day, the longest night of the year.

However you celebrate the season of the winter solstice, I wish every one of you warmth, brightness, and joy.

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I’m feeling rather virtuous this evening.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an article in the paper about a local charitable organization starting a career clothing bank.  They are collecting good suits and dresses and dressy blouses for women who are going for job interviews or who have already been hired, and who have nothing suitable to wear.

This particular charitable organization not only provides clothing, but maintains a food pantry and a kitchen which serves meals to those who might otherwise go hungry.  It is strictly local and has a stellar reputation — their expenses are kept to a minimum, and almost everything they take in goes to those who truly need the help.  I always feel good about whatever I donate to them.

I also wax enthusiastic when I hear about people helping themselves by getting jobs.  That’s hard enough to do at any time; but when times are as hard as they are now, I have to honor anyone who is going for an interview or who has actually managed to find work.

And so it was that I spent some time this past weekend going through my closets.  I pulled out all those nice clothes that I was hoping to “get back into one of these days.”  I think I knew I was kidding myself about ever being able to wear a size 14 again, but knowing what I paid for some of them left me scrambling for an excuse — any excuse – not to give them to someone who might not fully appreciate them.  I have no problem donating jeans and other casual clothes and even outgrown coats to others, but my really good suits?  That fine wool blazer?  And so they hung in my closet for 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 years, while some single mother may have been passed over for a job because she didn’t look her best at a job interview.

This evening there’s a bit more room in my closets.  It feels pretty good.

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Just in case you’ve forgotten, modern English is a distributive language.  That means that it is the word order that determines the meaning of the sentence.  It matters:

Dog bites man.

Man bites dog.

 In Latin or any other inflected language, “man” and “dog” would have endings or other form changes that would tell you who was doing the biting and who was being bitten.  The order of the words would be much less important.

One word that gets misplaced often, especially in casual speech and writing, is “only.”  We say things like “I can only see my friends on Thursday,” when that’s not at all what we mean.

Consider:

I went to the store yesterday.

Only I went to the store yesterday.

I only went to the store yesterday.

I went only to the store yesterday.

I went to only the store yesterday.

I went to the only store yesterday.

I went to the store only yesterday.

I went to the store yesterday only.

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One impractical solution to the airport security problem:

The airlines provide two planes for every flight.  One of them will carry all passengers whose persons have been scanned or patted down and whose luggage has been screened.  The other plane will carry all passengers who have chosen neither to be subjected to any security measures nor to have their luggage checked.

You choose which plane you want to fly on.

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I learned something this morning.

Our church choir is tiny — four women.  We have a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a tenor/baritone (me). 

I have some small talent as a singer, no training, and even less confidence.  My main contribution is to be able to hit a B below low C and to add some volume to the song.  I do fine in a group if someone will teach me my part, since I can’t sight read music.

Today was Kick-Off Sunday, and the choir served only to lead an old favorite, “Down by the Riverside,” with the congregation singing along.  Typically, we wear robes and hold a music folder, but this was very informal, so we decided to just wear our regular clothes.  And we knew the song so well that two of us decided not to even bring our music folders up there with us.

And thus it was that I found myself standing in front of the congregation, singing, with no robe, no folder, no barrier, no shield, between me and all those people.  Suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my hands, I didn’t know where to look, I couldn’t even decide whether I was supposed to smile.

I have an uncomfortable premonition that this may trigger those naked-in-public dreams.

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When I was growing up, we had what I think of as about four levels of dress.

There were shorts, jeans, and casual shirts which were reserved for play.  Then there were school clothes; we did not wear shorts or jeans to school, and when we got home we changed our clothes before we went out to play.  Then there were dressy clothes, sometimes called church clothes.  They served not only for church but for almost any event dressier than school.  By the time I got to college, I had added party clothes. 

Nowadays people seem to have more clothes, but they have fewer levels of clothes. 

People come to church, as a friend put it, in the same clothes they wear to the grocery store.  The children lighting the candles have bare legs and flip-flops hanging out below their acolyte robes. 

Jeans and t-shirts are the norm at our office.  And at the company Christmas party, which is supposed to be a dressy affair, I have seen folks in jeans and sweatshirts.

I have no idea what to make of it all.

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Recently I have been (re)reading some of the classics.  I’ve gone through Jane Austen’s entire collection, rediscovered Jane Eyre, and discovered Robinson Crusoe.

My most recent read was one of the most terrifying novels ever written — George Orwell’s 1984. I had read it in high school, but found it more frightening this time around. When I read it 50 years ago, it was just a cautionary tale.  Now it seems, well, more immediate. More possible. 

But something was missing.  I could have sworn there was a passage in that book in which Winston remembered, as a child, taking a crust of bread away from his baby sister, who was too sick to do more than cry weakly.  When he went back into her room she had been gnawed on by rats.

It was a horrifying scene.  He blamed himself for her death, of course.  And it fully explained his overwhelming fear of the rodents.  That fear eventually caused him to betray Julia, leaving him nothing but to love Big Brother, the final step in the surrender of his mind and will.

That scene was missing in the book I read this past winter.  I know, because I went back and looked for it.  Without it, Winston’s terror in Room 101 is understandable but not fully explained.

Did I make that scene up sometime in the past 50 years?  Did someone take it out because it was too gruesome?  Are they printing more than one version of the classics nowadays?  Did the original version go down the Memory Hole?  Am I committing a Thought Crime?

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I have a suggestion for the makers of the Kindle and the Nook and whatever other similar devices come on the market. 

How about, at the user’s option, the last 20 pages of each book are tinted red, or maybe have a red border.  The 20 pages before that use orange, and maybe the 20 before that use yellow.  It’s a warning system to let others – others who have the audacity to interrupt you when you’re reading – to know the level of peril of speaking to anyone that close to the end of a book.

Come to think of it, there’s no reason a conventional paper book can’t have the same coding system.

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If we say “healthy” when we mean “healthy” and also when we mean “healthful,” how will people know what we mean?

If we say “chemicals” when we mean “the substances of which everything in the universe is made” and also when we mean “artificial and often harmful substances added to foods and medicines,” how will people know what we mean?

If we say “organic” when we mean  ”made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules” and also when we mean “grown or raised with no pesticides,” how will people know what we mean?

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