Like a Log

Losurdo observes that the one-drop rule found in the American South was more stringent than the Nuremberg Laws (citizenship is not given if found 3⁄4 Jewish) implemented by Nazi Germany.[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:_A_Counter-History

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Losurdo

the original form of moral leftism, or what Losurdo referred to as the “beautiful soul”, which seeks to impose “the law of the heart” and the intelligence of its inevitable authoritarian reversal. For Losurdo, the ferment of authoritarianism in the communist movement is to be found more on the libertarian side of the communist utopia than in the reformist desire to build a state.

Senryu –  https://www.britannica.com/art/senryu

Senryu Girl : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senryu_Girl
/// https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentai_Filmworks

I had  a goatee
before but a ‘stache stands out

What I love about my families, chosen as well as traditional, is that we are all so distinct one from another

Granmoun blan isit la.  Ozetazini ak Kanada, pa janm mande yo nalang  angle oswa franse.  Pafwa an Frans, paske mwen gen yon aksan ibrid.  Mwen toujou mande, si kirye, depi mwen se yon xenofil.

Old white man here. In the US and Canada, never get asked in English or French. Sometimes in France, because I have a hybrid accent. I always ask, if curious, since I’m a xenophile.

Alteritas : Collectio poetica in linguas anglicas alienas

At the Door of the Dojo. Writing inspired by Aikido

At the door of the dojo a fellow aikidoka, who bears the name lf an ancient Persian king, offered me New Year’s greetings. I replied:
‎- نوروز مبارک, adding, غم انگیز است, it’s sad.
– “Why?” he asked: .چرا؟
‎-  به خاطر همه مرده های جوان, because of all the dead young.
– “It will take time, he said. Not as long, I hope, as aikido takes.  

Anna giving and taking like aikido
With sensei marriage and aikido
The Rhetoric of Aikido

Elliptics: Translations from the Québécois
Love is a figure of speech

For me to forgive you, you have to have forgiven me, and vice-versa

My two contributions to the “[James] Olney” African dinner on 11 Feb, 2023:

Nkulenu’s Palm Wine

and

West Africanish Peanut Soup

***

Alas, palm wine is not readily available in the US, so I had planned to make do with a modified version of the palm wine gin fizz and prosecco cocktail proposed by Zoe Anjonyoh in her cookbook, Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, using Nkulenu’s Palm Wine, an Accra-produced beer-strength drink made from the sap of palm trees. I got lazy and just offered chilled bottles of it.

Coincidentally, the first African novel published outside of Africa was Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard (1952). Written in Nigerian English (aka “Pidgin English”), it is a reworking of Yoruba folk tales. After being praised by Dylan Thomas, it had an interesting reception: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palm-Wine_Drinkard. 

A personal note: after I caught hepatitis (A) in Liberia in 1968 I was forbidden alcohol for three months. No problem, there was s lot of “Cairo” available — Liberian for cannabis, the substance being attributed to the Islamic population and to the trans-Saharan trade. Actually, we acquired our cairo from a local store front pharmacist by the name of Dominique, his French name betokening his Mandingo ethnicity, itself associated, in Liberian eyes, with Islam. He did in fact speak French.    

My first drink after abstinence from alcohol was a ceremonial “mid-afternoon” palm wine. The modifier expressses the style of wine. The wine is traditionally tapped in the early morning when it is fizzy and light. By afternoon it is more substantial, richer and less sweet. Evening wine is considered the connaisseur’s delight. Liberians compare the style to the age of women and the effects they produce.

***

Peanut “soup” is usually a stew containing, when affordable, meat often chicken, served over rice, a West African stable. I have devised a “soupy” vegan version from onions softened in palm oil, broth, tomato paste and organic peanut butter, itself based in palm oil. For the record, the palm oil used is marketed as sustainable and is produced on small farms in coastal Ecuador.

Given the devastating effect of its industrial production since the 19th century, palm oil is often disparaged by Western ecologists. It can be found is in many comestible and cosmetic products. “Palmolive soap” just scratches the surface.

 

The following passage on language contact in Morocco was deleted for reasons of space from my review of Grant’s Oxford Book of Language Contact (2019) [Grant-Lang] in the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages: 

There are two historically divergent dialects of Arabic in contact in Morocco, the pre-Hilarian, dating from the initial Arab invasions and rooted in the coastal trade centers; and the Hilarian, resulting from a 12th century renewal of Arabic via Bedouin migrations during the Almorad dynasty.

The Moroccan vernacular, Darija, is internally varied but distinct from and in continual contact with Standard Arabic.

There are also Berber (Amazigh) substrata and three European languages involved, distributed geographically and sociologically and overlaying the Arabic and the Amazigh mozaics (Mrini and Bond 2018).

French and Spanish affected Moroccan Arabic differentially during different phases of colonialism and today English is in the mix. Moreover, younger Moroccans in urban areas code-switch compulsively in SMS messages, often using the Roman alphabet with additional  numbers for Arabic letters (3 for ‘ayn and 7 for ḥā, among others). French is still the language many prefer to talk about things romantic or intimate, this perhaps out of a sense of propriety (Hall 2015, pp. 112-121