greaser, esp usu.

...

Love,

Money, and

Good work

is what a person needs.

The Dictionary is so funny.

They have little codes and abbreviations: "esp" is for "especially";

"usu." means "usually"

Why does "usu" have a . after it, and "esp" does not?

Another thing I may never know.

Walking out the door after work one cold night last week, someone behind me said the word "greaser." "Greasers." "Murmur, mumble, grumble greasers..."

Had the impression he was using that word as an epithet for our Hispanic co-workers.

Had additional impression that it may actually have been meant for me, though am not Hispanic -- maybe an experiment to see if I might

scold preach argue lobby

"at" him.

[Not even gettin' sucked in, babe! Not a chance! Not going down that road -- my car's out here warming up for a minute, and only road I'm going down is the one that leads to home...]

On the way into town, thought -- "he had the wrong word (can't these people even get their damn prejudices organized??)--when I think of the word "greaser" I think it's a guy -- probably a white guy, I don't know -- with slicked-back hair and a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in one of the sleeves. You know?

Like Fonzie, on "Happy Days."

They used the word that way in the movie "Shag" (so funny and charming, & such wonderful music !!) -- a girl says, "Oooh, he's a greaser."

The guy she's talking about is like the T-shirt cigarette guy I described above, NOT Hispanic.

AND -- the girl in the movie pronounces "greaser" with the "s" like a "z" which I thought was weird. I would tend to pronounce it the way the co-worker pronounced it -- with the "s" like the "s" in "savvy," or "Lisa."

(The girls in that movie are supposed to be living in South Carolina so wondered if the "greezer" pronunciation was some kind of Southern thing.)

-------------------

Instead -- get this -- the Dictionary wants us to pronounce it "gree'-zer" too! Like in the movie!

I was surprised. It only allowed that one pronunciation, no second option.

As for definitions, however, they gave me two.

"(1846) 1 : a native or inhabitant of Latin America; esp : MEXICAN -- usu. taken to be offensive

2 : an aggressive swaggering young white male usu. of working-class background"

So -- a "greaser" is BOTH --

Fonzie, AND

Che Guevara.

But only if you want to use that word, which we don't.

Hmm. An aggressive swaggering young white male.

Intriguing.

-30-

Sugar and spice and everything nice

Gossiping,
excluding, and
back-stabbing
are the central activities / tactics of a new thing psychologists identified in 1995:
Relational Aggression.
You can read about it on the Information Superhighway (internet).
(They were calling it that, in the early 1990s - !! Seems like no one remembers that except me -- they always think I'm off-the-wall...)

It's a relief, sort of, to learn of this, (relational aggression) because -- instead of an uncertain feeling of an amorphous, floating-around, mysterious unpleasantness that you can't understand and wonder if you said / did Something Wrong, you can say, "Hey, I know what that is. I read about it."
Somehow having the information organized and explained makes you less likely to feel hurt by it.

It's attributed to teen-age girls more than anyone else, but some people of various ages and both genders do it.
Psychologists were probably motivated to study it and try to come up with solutions because --
1. trouble in schools, when students' behavior becomes too disruptive and damaging, and
2. "Relational Aggression" would not be "new" (as I put it, above) but it would have increased bad results because Now it can escalate / spiral super-fast, through all the Technology.

----------------------------------
After I first read about this phenomenon / behavior pattern, memories went flip, flip, flip, through my head like turning pages in a photo album -- that one! that one! that one!
OMG -- that's what that was, it was Relational Aggression!

There's a more complex level of it, which involves more manipulation through relationships, which is for the Psychologists, not the English Majors to contemplate -- the kind I notice is the "excluding" -- the obvious, circumstantial kind.

A beautiful person who used to work with me told me once that she did not at all care for one man who works here. I asked her Why -- (some people never like any authority figures, but she did not seem like that type) -- she answered (English, her second language, so she had her own style of it) -- "He try to make you feel, these (gesturing with her hands) people are part of my ... my circle, and you are not."

Epiphany! That's what she had perceived -- Relational Aggression.

I've observed several times (and always wondered -- WHY? Why the rudeness?) -- where, OK, two people are in a room. Another person -- person X, walks in, and Person X speaks animatedly with one of the original people in the room and pointedly ignores the other one.

An office manager I observed years ago, would do that same thing in such a rapid-fire way, it was disconcerting and a little scary. It was just that she had practiced a lot and become really good at it. She would turn to one person by her desk and be REALLY-SUPER-NICE, overly-done, laughing almost too loudly, whatever ... very exaggerated behavior. Then she would turn, mid-sentence sometimes, to another person nearby and say, with a hostile expression and a deadly, low, angry voice: "Yes?" or "What do you want?" And then an uncooperative response, then snap back to the first person and do the "Oh my gosh that's so funny, & so great to see you! you always have to come in and talk to me, I know!"

Like -- Mood Ping-Pong or something.

I could never forget listening to one woman tell another (these were not teen-agers, but people in their 50s) that she and her husband had been to a dinner party at B & R's house, Saturday night. You had the impression that the dinner-party one was trying to make the other one feel bad, or something, because she had not been invited to this.
(Meanwhile I'm having one of those moments -- like, hmm, these papers on my desk seem to need re-shuffling, and maybe even to be put into different file folders -- ermh -- anything but watch this silliness. Pretend to ignore...)

The recipient of the information just said something pleasant, like "Oh that sounds like a fun evening" or something & moved forward with a question she had about something else -- appearing unaffected by the Idea of Not Having Been Invited to this Dinner Party.
And the Dinner Party one --
SAID IT AGAIN !
Louder, and with more emphasis.
"P and I went to B & R's Saturday night for a dinner party!"
(LOL) Smooth.
Ve-e-e-e-ry subtle.

I thought at the time, my goodness if you don't have ANY emotional maturity by the time you're in your 50s I don't know when you are going to get it.
But what I needed to remember is, that person probably was not striving for emotional maturity.
--------------------------------
"Relational aggression" also reminded me of a time in fifth grade when a whole bunch of girls in my grade level came in from recess really really mad at each other. There were 6 or 7 or 8 of them on Each Side of the conflict, and it was a Whole Big Thing of not speaking to each other. I never knew what it was about. (My father would say, "Do not be drawn into other people's soap operas." [Today we would say, "Don't get sucked into people's drama."])

The evening after the Recess Eruption, I was in a mall store for a little bit, while my mom shopped; I was to meet her in half hour, or something, and I saw Marty, a fifth-grader from a different class. She was involved in that "insurgency" and I remember feeling surprised by that. Because she seemed like a "together" kind of person.
When I saw her in the store, she was going down an aisle, away from me, but in a moment she turned back & hurried over toward me, smiling. She laughed when she reached me: "I wasn't going to talk to you, but then I remembered, you're not one of the ones I'm not talking to!"

We both laughed. It felt grown-up, to be Out at The Store, standing together and talking, without our mothers.

-30-

sincerity and humility: arguing with self

In New York Times Review of Books:
a book called
Dear Mrs. Kennedy
is a collection of some of the letters of condolence received by Jacqueline Kennedy after the assassination.

The reviewer writes,
"The letters were written in a spirit of sincerity and humility scarcely imaginable today..."
I read that and immediately wanted to disagree -- no, no -- there is always sincerity and humility, people are no different -- human nature is...

And then I remind myself, 'What are you arguing for? You make observations like that all the time!'

I think we can choose how we are going to be, and then live it, best we can.

On You Tube if you type in
"Jacqueline Kennedy thanking the public"
you will see a televised talk she gave in January of 1964.

"Whenever I can bear to, I read them. ...
All of you who have written to me know how much we all loved him,
and that he returned that love in full measure..."

She says, "loved him" with firm emphasis,
...and that he returned that love in full measure
("mea-szhuh")
[those distinctive accents...]

-30-

fold my hands and pray for rain

...
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door.
Ah -- I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more. ...

--Bob Dylan
"Maggie's Farm"
(album: Bringing It All Back Home)

-30-

tried this too

...and
Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein.

-30-

try something

E-mailed Ralph Nader, today,
about the Fairness Doctrine.

-30-

Man-up

The following is something I've been wondering about.

(from Wikipedia):
---------------------- The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced.

The 1949 Commission Report served as the foundation for the Fairness Doctrine since it had previously established two more forms of regulation onto broadcasters. These two duties were to provide adequate coverage to public issues and that coverage must be fair in reflecting opposing views.

...In 1987, the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine.
------------------------
[end quote]

There you go. That explains what has happened to "the news."
How could President Reagan allow that?
And why didn't President Clinton or Pres. Bush fix this?

Probably the same reason I didn't think too much about it until now.
You grow up in a world where you're accustomed to "Trusting" the "news."...
As a private citizen -- I'm just busy doing stuff.
and as Leaders and Politicians,
they probably don't want to be perceived as arguing with the media --
like they don't want the story-line to get started:
he's trying to change the laws about broadcasting because he doesn't like something they said about him...

Well there'll be criticism -- so what?
As one of my co-workers says, "There comes a time when you just have to Man-Up, and do it."

(When I first read that paragraph in Wikipedia, I thought, "How could FCC just 'abolish' a law?" -- but --
then realized --
it wasn't a law, was a policy. Their own policy.
Somebody had an "agenda" there, and it needs to be reversed.
The Fairness Doctrine needs to be a law, passed by Congress and the President.

(Hope to hear from Phil in Wales on this topic -- how do they do it in U.K.?)

-30-