The 1950s Medicine Chest

Talking with a friend last week I was remembering something which seems mind-blowing given how people live today. Do you realize that a mere 60 years ago the following was the ENTIRE medication kept in an average American home?: aspirin, iodine (for disinfecting cuts), calamine lotion (for itching from bugs or poison ivy), a foul, tar-like spray for sore throats name of which I have blessedly forgotten, and a tin of bandaids. Sometimes instead of iodine people kept mercurochrome. I was unable to swallow anything like aspirin (very sensitive gag reflex) so my mother had to grind it up and mix that bitter stuff with applesauce. When I was about nine (1952) I had penicillin for the first time. Each capsule (which was a new invention) cost 25 cents and my mother threatened me with dire consequences if I ruined even one by not being able to swallow it.

Something Rotten in Pennsylvania?

You may have noted the passing during the last two weeks of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). The first notice of his medical problem recorded in The Washington Post said that he had contracted an infection during surgery for his gall bladder. By the time of his burial and obituary (as noted in the same paper) the cause of his demise is given as "complications following gall bladder surgery". Technically that is correct but it seems to me a euphemistic way of covering the truth. It implies that something to do with the gall bladder killed him when in fact it was the hospital that killed him.

This scandalous state of affairs is being covered up all over the United States. Most hospitals seem to be infected with various bacteria and viruses that are killing more people than the injuries and diseases that took them there in the first place. Two years ago this happened to my cousin's husband. A perfectly healthy man got a broken leg repaired. Ended up on life support for three months with an insidious infection in his lungs - from the anaesthetic equipment - and then died.

I was told more than five years ago never to even go to visit someone in a hospital if I had a papercut! And I don't.

In the olden days each hospital room was completely disinfected between patients. Entire bed was washed down not just the sheets. Have you seen anyone doing that lately?

Snowcalypse: Canceling Life One Day at a Time

We have now been housebound for one full week. Yesterday the drifts on north-south roads were six feet high. Buses are halted and the metro only runs underground. No one has been to work or school for one week. People are cross-country skiing down my street and I just saw one woman on snowshoes! Since I am alone, I am not afraid of running out of food. Just glad I don't have to worry about where my dog can go to the bathroom.

Each day I have cancelled the program for the next day. Until Tuesday when I just went ahead and cancelled the rest of the week. The radio says that Baltimore has had 72 inches of snow this year and Philadelphia 60. They say Washington 54 inches but it must of been more than that since they had a deep snow here in December when I was away. I am so curious to see how long it will take to melt away. There is nowhere to put it. Instead of plowing they are now loading it into dumptrucks and taking it away.

Well, I always say winter in Washington, DC is boring but that ain't true this year!!!

The REAL Problem with Massachuetts

My husband tells a very cute tale about trying to learn how to pronounce "Massachusetts" when he was growing up in Afghanistan. Written in Arabic script it would look like this: (of course written from right to left, but nevermind that now) MSCHSTS. Being a foreign word it did not come written with diacritical marks to indicate which vowels go where. The geography teacher would say: "Well, maybe it is Misachasetus. Or maybe it is Masichasetis. Or maybe it is meschesetis." I don't think my husband was totally sure until he came to the U.S. and heard it pronounced here.

BUT GOOD THING HE DIDN"T ARRIVE IN AMERICA IN 2010! Lately a lot of people have been talking about Massachusetts because of the Senatorial seat election there, and I have noticed that many of the commentators on the radio or TV cannot pronounce the name of this state. Most of them mispronounce by saying "Massachuses." They completely do not pronounce the "t"s at the end. So weird.

The truth is that "Massachusetts" is a Native American (Algonquian) name and probably NONE of us is pronouncing it the way they would.

Big Snow of 2010!

This is so much fun! It has been snowing for most of the past 24 hours. We are up to 20 inches and it is still coming down. A friend is doing my shoveling and I am about to go into the sauna, then a fire, hot chocolate and a good book. So I ain't complainin'. My favorite time of the year!

Here are a few photos in case you don't believe me.

The Truth About Dulles Airport People Mover Lounges!!

The last fifteen times I have flown from Washington Dulles Airport I have found myself frustrated when I overheard people bad mouthing the people mover lounges. Most of you will probably have seen these but in case you haven't let me explain. These bus-like devices look like space era shuttles that rise and lower maybe as much as 10-15 feet off the ground. For the past 15 years they go back and forth between the main terminal and a really dumb temporary-feeling building that sits in the middle of what used to be a landing strip. For doing that they are truly cumbersome and clumsy. But here's the deal, people. When Dulles opened in the mid-1960s this is how travel was done at Dulles, which was by far the most sophisticated airport I ever saw in those days. (And I was traveling all over the world.) We would drive up in front of the terminal and get of the car directly in front of the Pan Am checkin. We would walk about 20 feet to the checkin desk and then go around behind it another 20 feet to the - are you getting this? - the actual GATE. Through the gate onto the people mover lounge which then took us directly to the DOOR OF THE AIRPLANE. One lounge to the First Class cabin and others to the rear of the plane. The lounge would then rise up until level with the entrance to the plane. How convenient, comfortable, cool, and sophisticated is that?

(I won't even go into the details of how nice flying was in the "good old days". First class was champagne, caviar, lobster, linen table cloths etc. Plus the attendants were actually nice and well-behaved. Today flying is what riding a bus was like in the 1950s.)

When I was 30, I could go from car to airplane in about 50-60 steps. Today when I have arthritis etc., I have to make my way about three miles from the car to the plane. And having a moving train (which actually broke down the first week it was operating) is not nearly as convenient or comfortable for old farts.

Where is English Going?

My children keep telling me that I am getting old and grouchy. When they complain about the house, I do get a little taken aback. They seem to imply that I could do something about its faults. The house is 100 years old. You can probably imagine how much electricity was being used 100 years ago compared to today. So we have ceiling lights and at the most two wall outlets in every room. (Except the kitchen which was totally gutted and redone in 1997 and has more outlets than all the other 15 rooms put together.) I am actually proud of the fact that I had to design how “cable” would enter this house. Most workmen today (who are ridiculously young) almost don’t even know what a plaster wall is – in contrast to a wallboard wall. And guess what? Surprise surprise we don’t have zone heating. The central hall is a very effective chimney that delivers a lot of heat to the second floor. (My kids don’t seem to remember that when they were teens they ran around on the second floor in their hmm hmm but put on winter coats when they came downstairs to eat.)

Today, however, I want to be grouchy about English, not my house. Over the past ten years I have noticed a MAJOR increase in the use of incorrect English, both word meanings and usage. Now even the media are oblivious to the errors they are promulgating. To start I want to zero in on “martyr”. According to my dictionary (Webster’s New World), this word has the following meanings:

1) a person who chooses to suffer or die rather than give up his faith or principles; a person tortured or killed because of his beliefs

2) a person who suffers great pain or misery for a long time.

Now the whole point of this is that the person in question has to be pressured in some way to give up his faith or principles in order to become a martyr. You cannot willingly allow yourself to be killed during some terrorist act and come out being a martyr. NO.

Another word I thought was misused is a little trickier. “Hero.” I thought a hero was someone who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. But the dictionary provides a different representation of hero.

1) a man of great strength or courage favored by the gods;

2) any man admired for his courage, nobility, or exploits, especially during war;

3) a person admired for his qualities or achievements and regarded as an ideal or model.

During the Presidential Campaign in 2008, Senator McCain was often referred to as a hero. In reading various descriptions of his life, the only item that seemed “heroic” to me was when he refused to be released from prison in Hanoi ahead his compatriots because his father was Commander of the Pacific. Being shot down over Hanoi was not heroic. Flying a plane during the war was his job. And even then I read that he had been ordered to turn around and return to base in South Vietnam so he was actually going against orders when the bad thing happened. But if I stick to the dictionary I guess I would agree that McCain is a hero for staying alive under horrible circumstances, not betraying his country under duress. Being permanently wounded and then coming home and serving his country for the rest of his so far life. Noble qualities and achievement. Yes. But think about other places where this word is cavalierly used.

The third word I worry over is “coward.” This word is certainly misused every day. A coward is not just someone you don’t like. The terrorists who have plagued our world for the last half generation are frightening people, for their values as well as their actions. I can see them being described as sick, or misguided, or even evil. But I don’t see where “coward” comes into it. Again, Webster says a coward is:

1) a person who lacks courage;

2) one easily or excessively frightened by something recognized as dangerous, difficult or painful.

It is not okay to call people we like “heroes” and people we don’t like “cowards”. Find better words.

I also have two longstanding bug-a-boos that are really getting out of control – in newspapers, on TV, on the radio, in movies. Everywhere. The first is the increasing inability of people to distinguish when to use “bring” and when to use “take”. Basically things can only be “brought” toward where you are and “taken” over there where you aren’t. So in other words, if you and I are standing together, I cannot say to you “When you leave for work, don’t forget to bring your lunch.” If you are going from here to work, you are taking your lunch there not bringing it. Now if I happened to be at your place of work and we are talking on the phone, I COULD say “When you leave for work, don’t forget to bring your lunch.” Get it? The more I think about it the more I realize that “bring” is being used more and more and “take” being used less and less. I have spent a lot of time trying to teach people this distinction and it is amazing how difficult it is. You either kind of hear the correct way or you don’t. To those of us for whom this is important, misuse is like nails scratching on a blackboard. And the fact that this error appears more and more in public communication is disturbing.

The other distinction is the difference between “less” and “fewer”. This is getting TOTALLY out of hand. People use “less” all the time and it is spreading like wildfire across the fruited plains. “Less” goes with words that cannot be counted; “fewer” goes with words that can. You cannot say “There are less problems facing teachers now than there were last year.” Since you can count problems, you must say “fewer problems.” Now the word money is tricky. You say “Well you can count money so you should say “fewer money” and that of course is wrong. You can count money but you cannot count the word money, as in one money, two monies. You can count dollars and coins so there you would use fewer.

We need to fix this problem. It makes us sound ignorant. It makes us sound like we don’t care about our language. Many people are demanding that recent immigrants should try harder to learn English. Well, those of us who already speak English had better try harder to keep our language in good condition.

Can You Picture Afghanistan Like This?

It is Christmas 1965. I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kabul, Afghanistan. My roommate, a devout Roman Catholic at the time, wants to go to midnight mass at the chapel of the Italian Embassy. Sounds good to me so off we go on our bicycles riding across Kabul city from Karte Char to Shash-Darak, about 4.5 to 5 miles. Now think on this. We are young women. I am 22 and she is 19. We are wearing American clothes, winter coats with gloves and hats. No veils, no head scarves, no perhan tumban etc. At the completion of mass it is 1:00 a.m. Christmas morning. As we exit the chapel, it is snowing! Lovely light snowflakes are drifting from the black sky. The houses of Kabul, many of which go up the mountain sides, are adobe and look like houses of the Holy Land 2,000 years ago. It is amazingly beautiful and Christmasy. We ride our bikes back across the city, singing O Holy Night, Silent Night, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, O Little Town of Bethlehem - shouting at the top of our lungs. We see no other people all the way home. No one objects to any of this nor do we expect them to.

Photo by Luke Powell