Dave's Whiteboard

A slow, off-topic morning — mostly off-topic, anyway.

First, legal news from the Federal Court of Appeals in Canada.  Down home in Cape Breton, Glenora Distillery has been making a single-malt whisky, Glen Breton Rare.  It’s a Canadian single malt.

The Scotch Whisky Association has for years tried to prevent Glenora from using the word “glen” in the whisky’s name, apparently believing that people will not understand the words “Canada’s Only,” “Canadian,” and “Canadien” on the bottle.  And miss the maple leaf.

Last week’s decision (reported in my home town paper) rejected the SWA’s contentions, finding the name neither deceptive nor misleading.

Cape Breton Island is sometimes a hardscrabble place.  As Ronnie MacEachern wrote in his song, Go Off on Your Way:

With each sunset, they’ll be leaving
When it rises, some return again
Just one penny for each broken heart
I’d surely be a millionaire

So there was a resonance when I happened across Anna Frater’s poem Dà Rathad (“Two Roads“) with its embrace of where she finds herself:

Ged a tha an rathad air a bheil mi cam
agus tha na clachan a’ gearradh ma chasan,
agus tha dìreadh an leothaid
gam fhàgail gun anail,
chan e an aon rud
a tha misc coimhead romham
latha an dèidh latha.

Although the road I take is crooked
and the stones cut my feet
and climbing the hill
leaves me breathless,
I am not confronted
by the same prospect
day after day.

And, to raise the mood a bit, I listened to Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh in this Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) / Gaelige (Irish Gaelic) blend from the album Dual (the word means “to braid, to twine” in both languages):

I couldn’t let the bardie’s 250th birthday pass without some recognition.  Here’s David Sibbald reciting on of Burns’ most famous poems.  Lyrics, and a bit of annotation, follow.

To A Mouse.
On turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!  (hurried noise)
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle.  (plow-staff)

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An’ fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; (sometimes)
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! (must)
A daimen icker in a thrave
(one ear of corn out of two dozen sheaves)
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t.
(..from the remainder, and never miss what you take.)

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! (tiny)
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! (feeble walls)
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, (to build a new one)
O’ foggage green! (dried grass)
An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen! (cold and sharp)

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past (plow-blade [lit., nose] )
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald, (out of house and home)
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble, (to bear)
An’ cranreuch cauld. (hoarfrost)

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, (are not alone)
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley, (amiss)
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Surrounded by All Things 2.0, I’m still inclined to looking backward, since the past is where I’ve spent most of my time.  For the new year, I think instead of resolutions, I’ll go for actions.  Here’s a first one: a decoder ring for Robert Burns’ most famous song.

Why decode?  Well, the lyrics are in Scots–a language or dialect* of Lowland Scotland, as distinct from the Gaelic (Gaidhlig) of the Highlands.

* “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
– Max Weinrich

Also, overexposure tends to deaden perception.  Especially in the U.S., we associate the song with noisemakers and incoherent New Year’s Eve singing.  So it’s maybe time to revisit and reframe. Auld lang syne (“old long since”) means something like “the days that are past,” and especially “the times that we remember.”  In a way, Burns is celebrating our ability to store and retrieve our shared experience.

(Want extra credit?  “Syne” is pronounced like “sign.”  No Z sound.  Trust me.  You can hear proof if you hang around.)

The Burns	The gist
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne?	These are rhetorical questions: Should we forget old friends and never bring them to mind?  Forget them–along with all the times past?
For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.	Not at all–in fact, we’ll have a drink together for the times gone by.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp! And surely I’ll be mine! And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.	(I know) you’re good for your drinks ( “be your pint-stowp” — “pay for your tankard” ), and you know I’m good for mine. We’ve still got that drink to share for the times gone by.
We twa hae run about the braes, And pou’d the gowans fine; But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit, Sin’ auld lang syne.	We two have run along the hillsides And picked the lovely daisies together– But we’ve wandered many a weary foot since the times gone by.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn Frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar’d Sin’ auld lang syne.	We two have paddled in the stream From dawn till dusk But broad seas have roared between us Since those times gone by.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere And gie’s a hand o’ thine And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught For auld lang syne.	So, here’s my hand, my trusty friend And give us (= give me) yours We’ll take a good, hearty drink For all the times gone by.

Here’s a lovely version sung by Eddi Reader (who also sang it at the [re]opening of the Scottish Parliament):

(Dec. 30, 2009 update: the original video w/ Mairi Campbell disappeared from YouTube, so I’ve substituted this.  You’ll find it acceptable.)

I didn’t use to think my family had that many veterans, though my brother was a kind of exception: an air force career, including service in Viet Nam. I only learned a few years ago that my dad wanted to join the Canadian air force at the beginning of World War II. They thought he was on the old side — in 1939, when Canada entered the war, he was 26 — so he rejoined his old outfit, the Mounties.

My mother was the real veteran — a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy.

In the past few years, stories of aging veterans of that war have emerged, and the circle has expanded: Uncle Freddie, in the merchant marine. His wife Kit, whom I never knew, in the Canadian army. Uncle Danny, who died just last month, a gunner on a Lancaster bomber. His wife Olive was a war bride; they met while she was in the Royal Air Force. My aunt Billie was too young to serve, but one of her first boyfriends landed with Canadian forces in Normandy in 1944 and died four months later in Holland.

In a town filled with names like MacDougall, Gillis, Macdonald, MacLellan, there were two Jewish families. They lost three sons in the war: Nathan and Sam Feinstein, and John Levine.

Jean-Baptiste Massieu said that gratitude is the heart’s memory. For many of these people, memory is the only way we can express gratitude.

Here’s a nice example of applied technology and (fairly) straightforward how-to.

Twitter Vote Report is a vehicle for live updates (or up-to-the-minute tracking) of voting experience across the country.  You can report via Twitter (using the #votereport hashtag), by text (start with #votereport, text to 66937 [MOZES]), by phone (567-258-VOTE (8683) or 208-272-902).  More details at the site.

Also from the site, I got the code to modify for a state-level report:

Folks who haven’t used Twitter can start today, using the how to help page.  I’d never used hashtags before — keywords with # in front of them — but Twitter’s eager to have folks do so:

Including “#votereport� in your tweet is enough to get your report tracked by Twitter Vote Report. But the more details you can stuff in, the better. So, for example, include in your Twitter post:

• #[zip code] to indicate the zip code where you’re voting; ex., “#12345″
• L:[address or city] to drill down to your exact location; ex. “L:1600 Pennsylvania Avenue DCâ€?
• #machine for machine problems; ex., “#machine broken, using prov. ballotâ€?
• #reg for registration troubles; ex., “#reg I wasn’t on the rollsâ€?
• #wait:[minutes] for long lines; ex., “#wait:120 and I’m coming back later”
• #good or #bad to give a quick sense of your overall experience
• #EP[your state] if you have a serious problem and need help from the Election Protection coalition; ex., #EPOH

Since I work from home, I’m able to pick my time to vote… and with this nudge, I’ll report via Twitter when I do.

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An afterthought: last election, there were about 1875 voters registered in my precinct — I wonder how many of them are on Twitter?

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Afternoon update: We walked to the precinct. I checked the time as we entered the community center: 1:13 pm. I didn’t recognize a single election judge, so the whole crew may have turned over since I was a chief judge in this precinct in 2006. I stopped to chat with one of the chief judges on the way out; even with that, eight minutes, from entry to exit. We were back home at 1:31.

The check-in judge did tell me that they’d been busy up to about 30 minutes earlier.