Okay, never mind about the last question, I've looked up the answer. I wonder why no doctor I've ever seen--all of them, obviously, aware of my possible allergy--has ever mentioned that this could be a potential problem in an emergency situation, or advised me to consider testing and/or wearing a bracelet?
Thanks to everyone for your advice and concern. I'm not even 100% sure that I am allergic to penicillin; I broke out in hives once after being given amoxycillin as a small child, and haven't had any -cillins or similar antibiotics since. So on the one hand, I may have outgrown the allergy, but on the other hand, I'm aware that reactions can suddenly go from annoying things like hives to life-threatening things like closing airways and shock. Is this something I ought to have tested? How do they test you for potentially life-threatening allergies, anyway--expose you and then quickly stick you with an epi-pen if you react?
Is penicillin a critical allergy? By which I mean, is it the sort of thing that's likely to be given before medical people get in touch with emergency contacts?
More likely that dogs are descended from scavengers, who lived off the trash heaps surrounding primitive villages. Most of 'em would be fearful of people, and would run off or attack when approached by people. However, some would be more human-o-philic, so to speak -- they'd stick around when humans were nearby, and not attack. Those are the ancestors of the current population of dogs.
So what you're saying is that in a little while we should be seeing tame, affectionate, trainable squirrels?
Cool!
I know very little about these things, but is it possibly that the dead are not being confirmed dead and are showing up in the numbers as MIA rather than KIA?
Teresa, I can't imagine how infuriating and awful this must be.
I wouldn't expect this avenue to go anywhere really, but the Ombudsmans of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Warren Rumble, can be reached at 301-594-5480. It could be helpful to have a complaint on file with them that you can cite when talking to media.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/ombud/default.htm
Merry Christmas, Teresa and Patrick, and thank you for not varying the translation. It means a lot to those of us whose early religious education came from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
I saw the mayor of Bethlehem being interviewed on CNN. He said he had heard that all the hotels were booked. It's remarkable how little things change in two thousand years...
My first response to the St. Margaret of Antioch Particle was:
"Mommy, if I'm really really really good, can I have a pet dragon?"
I was in a museum in Venice when an American couple walked by me listening to a spiel from an English-speaking Italian tour guide. The guide pointed out various saints surrounding the Virgin and Child on a late medieval altarpiece. "And there's Saint Mary Magdalene, and there's Saint John the Baptist..."
"Wait," says one of the Americans. "Mary Magdalene is a saint?"
"Of course," says the guide, with a genuinely puzzled how-can-Americans-be-so-very-dumb look.
I could just hear the Americans thinking, But I thought the Church covered her up and made her out to be a prostitute!--and I haven't even read TDVC.
Thank you, candle--as someone noted upthread, Donne is easy because so little has to be changed! I've not been trying for "new poems" (even though that's what inevitably results, since "poetry is what gets lost in translation") because I can't bear to throw out lines that already work just for the sake of reworking them. For me, thinking of this as more than just a parlour game carries a definite whiff of sacrilege.
The Fall of the Men of Zad
The foe he came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his men they all shone in their silk and their gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the deep,
When the blue wave rolls out on the sea as we sleep.
Like the leaves of the wood when Spring's child puts on green,
That host with its flags as the sun set were seen:
Like the leaves of the wood when Fall's rags are all down,
That host on the morn lay strewn dead on the ground.
For the one who brings Death spread his wings on the blast,
And he breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the prone ones went dead and waxed chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, once for all they grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nose flared out wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his mouth lay there white on the soil,
As cold as the spray on the rocks where it roils.
And there lay his lord, now all warped and grown pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
From the tents came no sound as the flags slumped, not flown,
The spears not held high and the horns not once blown.
And the wives left at home beat their breasts as they wail,
And the false stocks are cracked in the false shrine of Baal;
For their might, with no blow struck by spear or by sword,
Hath run like hot snow in the glance of the Lord!
Isn't "oleo" just the Southern U.S. shortening of oleomargarine? (Sorry, pun intended.) My grandmother used to say it; she also called the toilet the "commode."
The Lord guards me as his sheep; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green fields. He leads me by the still pools.
He brings my soul back to health. He leads me in the ways of the good, for his name's sake.
Though I walk through the vale of the shade of death, I shall fear no ill, for thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they give me strength.
Thou hast set a board for me in the sight of those who hate me. Thou hast poured oil on my head; wine flows from the brim of my cup.
And thy love and grace shall come with me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord till the end of days.
Way too easy, since there are a gazillion translations to draw on.
Dave Bell,
I was sensitive to the connotation problems in both those places and several others, but there's always a question of whether you want to hit the precise meaning of the word or try to preserve the pacing; doing both is sometimes impossible. I certainly don't think I have improved on the original in any way! This exercise really brings home to me the lightning/lightning bug distinction.
Good to know my first instinct about "landing grounds" was right after all.
Didn't use a thesaurus, but it was the best my brain could come up with. Do you have a better idea? "More and more trust in our skill," maybe? I rejected "faith" as having the wrong connotations.
I'm curious, what else struck you as bad thesaurus use?
It also occurred to me that "landing grounds" probably refers to amphibious assault rather than planes. Oh well.
Argh! "No thing," not "nothing." I suppose I'll stop now. And yes, I do think "power" can be one syllable.
I decided to try some Churchill, in light of the article Rick S. quoted:
"I have, in my own mind, full faith that if all do as they should, if they leave nothing to chance, and if the best plans are made, as we make them just now, we shall prove once more that we can guard and keep our home, this Isle, can ride out the storm of war, and can live through the threat of the rule of death, for years if we must, on our own if we must. Come what may, that is what we will try to do. That is the will of our King's men--each man of them. That is the will of the Moot and of our whole land. We and the French, linked as one in our cause and in our need, will fight to the death for our own soil, the soil where we were born; we will each help our friends and fight side by side, to the last reach of our strength. Though large tracts of the West and more than a few old and famed States are now or may soon be in the grip of the our foes and all the sick chains of their rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and on the waves, we shall fight with more and more trust and with more and more strength in the air, we shall guard our Isle, let the cost be what it may, we shall fight on the shores, we shall fight on the grounds where the planes land, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall not give in, and if, which I do not for the time one thought takes hold true, this Isle or a large part of it were in our foes' hands, made slaves and left to starve, then our Realms on the far side of the seas, armed and kept by our Fleet, would keep on with the fight, till that day when, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to free and save the old.
The above should read "wrapped 'round the bone," of course. Also "Thou shalt be one..."
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