It really wouldn't surprise me if my roommate bought it. I'll have to ask her when I go home this weekend. Last weekend she was all "Ha! They killed Zarqawi! Yay America! Surely this will change everything and they'll be sending the troops home any time now."
It was bizarre (and disturbing and offensive) to hear Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy call the suicides a "PR stunt"—when it is in fact she, as an agent for "public diplomacy," and Rear Admiral Harris who are engaging in the acts of war, spinning tragedy into propaganda.
Ann Althouse, in her usual "look at me! I'm just being contrarian! No, that's not what I meant! If you're mean to me I'll vote Republican!" way, thought the claim was interesting and not unrealistic.
For suicide to be an act of war (or an act of terrorism, or whatever,) doesn't the person killing themself usually have to take someone else out with them? E.g., suicide bombers, kamikazes, etc.
It's hard for me to imagine one of these guys sitting in a cell in Gitmo offing himself and his last thought being, "Take that, America!"
I think this probably characterizes most of the guys at Guantanamo. You'd think if there was anyone of real import there, they would have done something with them by now.
Anyway, Harris' comments were already nonsense, even before this came out. When your act of war is hurting yourself, it's a pretty ineffective act of war.
I mean, it's much easier for me to imagine a gay threesome amnesiac forgetting the orgiastic hijincks in which he has taken part and thinking, "Take that, America!"
20: Yes, among the things that the fuckers who support Harris can't grasp is the distinction between "Act of protest" and "Act of war." Do they think that when they post their stupid little screeds in favor of Bush's policies that they're engaging in acts of war in the War on Whatever, which means that (by the rules of war) they're legitimate targets for the enemy? I guess they do.
It's hard for me to imagine one of these guys sitting in a cell in Gitmo offing himself and his last thought being, "Take that, America!"
Perhaps they were members of the suicide squad at the end of Monty Python's Life of Brian?
Suicide Squad Leader: We are the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad! Suicide squad, attack!
[they all stab themselves]
Suicide Squad Leader: That showed 'em, huh?
It's hard for me to imagine one of these guys sitting in a cell in Gitmo offing himself and his last thought being, "Take that, America!"
During the war in Vietnam there was at least one instance (and I think more, but I've only seen a photograph of one instance) of a Vietnamese monk self-immolating in public in protest.
Hunger strikers in Northern Ireland actually died too.
So I think it's possible that suicide can be a powerful act of protest and propaganda. That said, Harris' comments were a bunch of shit.
For suicide to be an act of war (or an act of terrorism, or whatever,) doesn't the person killing themself usually have to take someone else out with them? E.g., suicide bombers, kamikazes, etc.
I guess technically that if you were an actual terrorist, and if you were the only one in custody in possession of certain secrets that could greatly harm your cause, espose others in your group, etc., and if you thought eventually your captors would torture said secrets out of you, then a pre-emptive suicide could be construed as an act of war.
Hmm. Given that the administration seems to equate 'winning the war' with 'winning public opinion' and given that detainees committing suicide in concert damages public opinion, perhaps, if we squint a little and unlike Clinton, inhale, we can construe it as an act of war.
The thing is, suicide as act of protest isn't exactly inseparable from suicide as act of despair. It's not like it's gonna be your *first* recourse when you want to make a political point.
33 So I think it's possible that suicide can be a powerful act of protest and propaganda.
Protest and propaganda, sure, but only an "act of war" if that's an extension of the propaganda arguement. Still though, I too have an awful lot of trouble imagining the last thoughts being, "Take that America!".
IME suicide is a way out, not a way to fight back. At least that seems to be the reason most forefront in the mind of the victim. "The most common reason given for suicide attempts is to escape or get relief from situations causing extreme distress." [ pdf ] That study focuses specifically on women with borderline personality disorder, but other studies of specific groups bear out the same conclusions.
It's worth remembering also that this particular study, and others I've read like it, were conducted in the United States. I've no idea how cultural differences affect attitudes towards suicide.
Also, Lab's cock does taste like shit. (Just so we're not actually trying to turn this into a discussion of suicide or anything.)
Close -- it means lacking a coat of arms, i.e., not from a noble (more or less) family. There's a very funny bit about armigerous vs. non-armigerous branches of a family in "The Jack Randa Hotel" by Alice Munro.
There's no avoiding using your "Esq.", because it serves the purpose of advertising your status, and is called for in letters and on addresses, when signing pleadings, etc., but I never see it after my name without being faintly annoyed at its tone. I'm glad I don't have to wear a wig, anyway.
Oddly enough, I do have coats of arms, on both sides. They're silly too. I think of my clan badge as basically a gang symbol.
I never see it after my name without being faintly annoyed at its tone
That is why I use it after the name of opposing counsel in addressing letters, but never after my own. I will not slight people who find the use of Esq. important when used in reference to them, but I do not use it in referring to myself. This has been the general practice at both the firms I have worked at.
Have to I don't know; It's not in the bar rules or anything. I meant that its use is often expected between lawyers, when signing as I noted above, and it is one of those things that you just accept as part of the territory. It's also expected by clients, in my experience. If they've asked for a lawyer's letter, it should be there — it's part of what they're paying for.
I've never had any projection problems; nobody every asked me, "You're a lawyer? Really?" as I've seen happen to others, but I do feel compelled by some norms. If you see clients, I was taught it is a good idea to have your diploma and bar admission on the wall behind you, however lame and hokey that feels.
LB, as you know, would not have projection problems either. That "damoselle" business mixes metaphors. I personally have no problem imagining her in armor.
If you see clients, I was taught it is a good idea to have your diploma and bar admission on the wall behind you, however lame and hokey that feels.
I certainly have an "I love me" wall. Though sometimes I wonder why--most of my interactions with clients are on the phone or in their offices; when they do come to the office, we usually meet in a conference room with a fancy view.
I've often interviewed clients talking to a lawyer for the first time in their lives. You want to be friendly and approachable, but also reassuring. Subtlety and understatement may not be what they need.
I used to be disdainful of lawyer's offices with heavy furniture, leather, huge desks and chairs too. And I've never used them, but I understand their purpose.
Conference rooms with impressive-looking but obsolete and not-updated law books in cases are good for this.
Whoever those people are who get the tax breaks for the rich that one reads about, I can assure you that I am not one.
Dude, why aren't you a Democrat?
I tried explaining this to LizardBreath once, and I think she still is mad at me for some of the things I said, so maybe I should take a pass on answering this question.
Subtlety and understatement may not be what they need.
This is a hard thing to learn. I am still working on it. I want to give the client nuance and caution and a full explanation, but as my more experienced partners have pointed out to me, clients mostly do not want that, they just want to know that you will take care of them and that everything will be OK.
70:Sure, Esquire doesn't mean noble. The nobles, Baronets and higher in the British system, are a subset of the armigerous.
And you can order up a coat of arms from Bond Street. I'm sure the one in my father's name was done by someone newly-prosperous in the 18th or 19th centuries.
No coats of arms or tartans for me! But I like to think there's some Sicilian mafia minidons in there somewhere, along with French peasantry chopping off heads.
I'm related to Mary Todd Lincoln, Sir Francis Drake, and three pilgrims. And maybe Kenny G. on my dad's side.
Posted by
La Contesa Tia Maria de un Lugar Inimaginable |
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06-13-06 6:17 PM
78
I'm related to Meriwether Lewis. Which explains a lot, actually.
Posted by
El Señor Don Teofilo, Duque de Alburquerque y Conde de San Juan |
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06-13-06 6:28 PM
79
I've got George Washington's overseer, a Revolutionary War general, John Rolf and Pocahontas, and Thomas Jefferson's brother all supposedly in my family tree.
I don't know a single ancestor past my great-grandparents. On Mom's side they were Irish peasants -- her parents immigrated; and on Dad's side they were from Queens. My great-grandfather was apparently the best looking drunk in Queens -- after he drank himself to death, the guy at the morgue sympathized with my great-grandmother about losing her son so young.
(There is some earlier family story about someone who immigrated from England to Canada, and from there to Queens, and repeatedly went bankrupt trying to introduce porkpies to Queens as a snack food. But I'm not sure who that was.)
I'm a Son of the Revolution, Son of the Confederacy, and Son of the Republic of Texas, and Son of the Alamo. But only by way of unknown schmucks.
But this is a good story: my great-great-great-grandfather was so dedicated to the gold standard, he swore he wouldn't shave his beard until William Jennings Bryan won the presidency. Needless to say, a long beard on that man. He also has a cane whose head is a some-odd-karat gold bust of WJB, and that cane is still in my family and totally mine.
There is a no doubt apocryphal story floating around in my family that we are descendants of a mistress of George IV. Supposedly he built some wonderful new paved road—for the sole purpose of getting to her—near my ancestral home.
Or so he was described on his death certificate from 1923 (in St. Paul, MN). But apparently he was considered a learned man in Russia. I'm getting this from a "genealogical narrative" of a family tree one of whose leaves I am, which I swear at one point—different edition, I guess—included an anecdote about someone back in Ukraine, who I think would have been my grandmother's grandmother, having been the grand or great-granddaughter of the Baal Shem Tov, and having had four rabbis officiate at her wedding for that reason. But it's not in the edition I have, which I find very disappointing.
My great-grandfather was a barber in Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine in 1905. He participated in the unsuccessful revolution in that year, and one day not long afterward he was in his barbershop and bent down to tie his shoe, at which point a bullet went flying over his head and lodged in a mirror behind him. It was then that he decided to come to America.
My great-grandfather on the one side abandoned the family when my grandmother was a little girl. (Proof that not all were smiling two-parent homes before femin1sm.) He came back when she was sixteen to attempt to take charge of the family, and she threw him out. (Proof that my grandmother kicked ass.)
On the other side, a tiny Italian man from Sicily who raised six kids in Pittsburgh, including my grandfather, who drove a vegetable truck.
My wife's family on one side is mostly from a small town in South-Central Germany. At the time of emancipation, early 19c, they were recognized as living there although hadn't yet been given last names. I understand there's a lot of that; "Ephraim, the Jew and family," like that. By the end of the 19c, both parts of her family lived in Berlin. Her great-grandfather had emigrated to Chicago, where her grandmother was born, but gave up and moved back when his wife died. In '39, her being able to claim American birth was the anchor that got them all out. You can imagine how my wife feels about the plan to disallow American birth "anchors" now.
On the dad's side, I'm pleased to say the family goes back to the Revolutionary War--through a woman named Lopez. It tickles me to think of joining the DAR (as if) with those credentials.
Mom's side are just all stubborn German farmers, mostly.
I've got another "immigration" story. My grandfather was, yeah, a Canadian carpenter. Every year during the twenties, he spent months at a time working in the states, sending the money back. All probably illegal, but harder to trace then, with no withholding. Cash payment was the usual way then, as it must be for illegals even now. An "invisible" illegal. Construction collapsed during the depression, and he came home for good.
All of my mom's grandparents immigrated to the US around the same time (about 100 years ago), while most of the branches of my dad's family have been on this continent so long we don't know when they arrived. Yay intermarriage!
My paternal family came over from Hungary during the 1848 revolutions in Europe. They were Magyars who had sold out and were working for the Hapsburgs; supposedly the revolutionaries burned them in effigy, so they skedaddled to Iowa. A few generations later in this same branch, there's a great-great-uncle who was published in the first issue of Poetry magazine and had a long-running affair with Edna St. Vincent Millay. He also started a fake literary movement called Spectra as a practical joke that apparently was taken seriously for a while; the whole point of it was to mock the more free-form poets, but the parody poems ended up being at least as good as most of his earnest stuff.
On my mom's side is a guy (whose pocket watch I have) who ran away from home in London when he was ten or twelve in the 1880's to become a cabin boy; after sailing around the world a few times, he jumped ship in Southern California, where my Mom was born. There's also a bunch of Norwegian fishermen/sailors in there somewhere.
On my dad's side, I apparently qualify for one of those hoity-hoit clubs because someone came over on one of the first four pilgrim boats. That hoity-hoit line ended up in Whitehorse, Yukon, and intermarried with poor Scots miners (whose last name, probably coincidentally, associates them with a be-tartanned clan), so they're not so hot.
On my mom's side, we go straight to Hyrum Smith (Joseph's older brother, killed at the same time).
Mom's Mom's family: Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition (which they had not expected) and came ultimately to settle in Jamaica. At some point long about my great-grands, they moved to Los Angeles (and maybe there were intervening points of residence too.) Brush with greatness: my mom grew up in Beverly Hills and as a young kid had some famous movie-star type neighbors. I do not know which ones though.
Mom's Dad's family: Jews who fled pogroms or pogrommy trouble in Poland. I think but am not sure that my grandfather was the first born in the US, and that he was born in Los Angeles. He made some money as an accountant to movie stars but lost it all to gambling and drinking. My grandparents were divorced when my mom was a teenager.
Mom's Step-dad's family: Also Jewish immigrants from Poland. My step-grandfather is a pioneer in biofeedback therapy.
Dad's Mom's family: My great-grandfather was born in Denmark of Swedish parents, and emigrated to the American midwest somewhere, perhaps Wisconsin. My grandmother came to California when she went to UC Berkeley, where she met my grandfather.
Dad's Dad's family: German immigrants from the Nordseekuste, I think the family has been in the US in the neighborhood of 100-150 years. Branches lived in southern NJ (Great Egg Harbor), upstate NY (Ithica), and Indiana (not sure). My great-grandfather earned his Ph. D. in entomology from Cornell, then went to North Dakota to homestead, could not hack it, moved to Delano, CA where he worked the rest of his life as entomologist for a large farm.
Right, she might not have been pg when she left the country, but she sure coulda been. And in any case, folks emigrating in 1700 who weren't rich or governors? They had reasons.
No, they did it because they had gotten political appointments and/or invested. As opposed to italicized reasons, which is obviously a euphemism for bad ones.
Lots of Scots claim some kind of vague clan affiliation but there's not a massive amount of real basis to it, I suspect. The clan system only ever really covered the rural part of the Highlands and Islands and was destroyed in the 18th century. Not a huge amount of relevance to a country which was one of the cradles of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and where the vast bulk of people live (and have lived) in the industrial central belt where no-one has spoken Gaelic for about 1000 years or more.
Fwiw, I know nothing about my own family any further back than the mid-to-late 19th century. I'm not even sure if before that they were indigenous to the west coast of Scotland and had been for hundreds of years, or, if they were poor Catholic immigrants from Ulster to Glasgow at some point in the mid 19th century. There's vague family stories and evidence that points both ways but no-one's ever bothered doing any kind of family tree.
I certainly have no clan affiliation, indeed I find the whole tartan and clan thing and that kind of shortbread-tin 'Scottishness' reeks of bullshit. Most of the tartans are 19th century inventions (at best) or 20th century (mostly). It's quite cute for those who really do descend from the Gaelic speaking areas of the west and north-west of the country, for everyone else it's harmless fun but a bit silly.
I'll bet it brings in the tourist money, though. Googling my Scottish-seeming last name with, oh, "tartan" or "coat of arms" generated a lot of sites offering travel-packages to show me what I cynically assumed were totally bogus "ancestral lands."
Oh yeah, it brings in the tourist cash. Also, a lot of Scots are fairly uncynical about this stuff. It's not just tourists. I wouldn't want to totally mock this stuff -- it does have a loose basis in historical fact (with the emphasis on 'loose').
I've always been told that it is very bad form to refer to yourself as Esquire.
But within living memory it was standard practice in Britain to address formal letters to "J.Soap, Esq." even if you knew perfectly well that Joe Soap was a bankrupt burglar from Bulgaria.
127 and 128: I was confused by this practice the first time that I went to Britain; in the U.S. Esq. is used to refer to lawyers only. I have no idea how this usage evolved, and it doesn't make any sense.
101: On the dad's side, I'm pleased to say the family goes back to the Revolutionary War--through a woman named Lopez. It tickles me to think of joining the DAR (as if) with those credentials.
Come on, B. Everybody knows that the Daughters of teh American Revolution are just a bunch of parvenus. It's all about the Colonial Dames. (Actually my grandfather accepted an invitation to become an honorary colonial dame; he was an archivist.)
I thought that they were okay until I met someone in DC who was in town for their annual meeting. She was this awful snooty Southern woman. Is it just my regional prejudice or is it really true that the Southern variant of the geneology fetish is more offensive than the Northern one. I actually thought of joining the Pilgrim Society. There are some real characters affiliated with that.
98: My great-grandfather on the one side abandoned the family when my grandmother was a little girl. (Proof that not all were smiling two-parent homes before femin1sm.)
My great-great-grandfather, I think it was, came to the U.S. in the late 19th century, but his mother-in-law told her daughter (his wife) not to go because she would just be his slave. He remarried in the new country, she in the old (it's not clear that this was legal but hey -- I'm descended from the child who was definitely legitimate), which leads to some interesting relationships; some of the people I ordinarily refer to as my cousins are actually half second cousins once removed. I think there's another divorce in the next generation which complicates things too.
My grandfather was born here; his father came to the U.S. maybe around 1910 and sent for them in 1914, but the way I heard it they went to the train station to go the boat and the Russian Army got off, so they waited till after WWI. I always think of him as from Poland but it was the Austro-Hungarian empire when he was born, Russia invaded it pretty much first, and now it seems to be in Ukraine. Probably it was Poland for a year or two after they left.
As you've probably guessed, I'm pretty sure I'm not related to anyone famous since King David.
My step-grandfather is a pioneer in biofeedback therapy.
Actually my grandmother is also such a pioneer. I'm not sure why I would credit the man and not the woman; either raging sexism, or an impulse to credit the tech half of the team rather than the psychology half.
My step-grandfather wrote drivers to feed data from biofeedback machines (EKG, EEG, etc) into personal computers (first Apple II, and later IBM PC's -- I don't believe he ever wrote for Macs), and wrote and writes software to process that data into presentable formats; my grandmother (recently departed) was a psychologist who used these presentations as part of her treatment mode.
Much as religion sometimes annoys me, in the genealogical context it's been helpful for me on two fronts: 1) the mormon edict to follow it means I know everything about my matrilineal side (all dutch, came over in the late 19th century) 2) the almost-total lack of (religious) intermarriage in Egypt means that I know a lot about my patrilineal line because we are part of a relatively small religious sect, which as far as I can tell means my ancestors have been in Egypt since at least the time of Christ, possibly longer.
I have to admit, the genealogical thing doesn't really interest me at all.
I'm very interested in the history and culture of where I am from -- growing up surrounded by Roman and Celtic ruins, castles, etc. tends to do that to you -- and I feel very 'rooted' in where I am from. However, the precise timeline of my own family's movements in and around Scotland and Ulster interests me rather less.
My great-grandfather, the story goes, came over here from Poland and settled in New Jersey, with the idea that he'd send for my great-grandmother once he was established. Well, he never did (goes the story) so my great-grandmother picked up the two kids she was left with, walked to the nearest port, and hopped a boat to America, where she showed up on my great-grandfather's doorstep, kicked out (goes the story) the woman he'd shacked up with, and lived unhappily ever after.
Hey have you guys read this poem? I just did last night. Wow. "Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,/ Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame."
There is a typo in line 6 -- "though", not "thought".
129, 130: I don't actually know the history of Esq.=Lawyer, but part of it is that in the 19thC in England, being a lawyer was one of the few possible ways for a gentleman to earn money without losing caste -- you could be a lawyer, a clergyman, or in the military. My assumption is that lawyers would, as a result, be particularly punctillious about signing themselves Esq., because they were slightly insecure about their status as members of the gentry. Maybe the American usage arose out of clueless Americans noting that English lawyers were touchy about their entitlement to use Esq., and figuring that it was a signifier of being a lawyer, not just of being a gentleman.
LB, I was googling around after this one and found women lawyers who describe themselves as "esquire". You can have no idea how bizarre this looks from over here, like Mr Hillary Clinton.
Actually the ABA site cites Black's Law Dictionary: "In English law, a title of dignity next above gentleman, and below knight. Also a title of office given to sheriffs, serjeants [sic], and barristers at law, justices of the peace, and others", which explains it nicely.
123-125: I've always been about as skeptical as you about the hoopla. I've a friend who's always trying to get me to join his branch of the Burns Society, wear a kilt and stuff, but I've always felt it was ludicrous. My family were Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, but still.
It should be pointed out though, that in Atlantic Canada it's been possible to live in a largely Scottish world until right up to our time. This despite the bulk of the imigration having occured in the 18th and early 19th Cs. Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief is about this, and that book brought back for me a lot of forgotten memories and impressions; I'm about the age of the characters. Particularly the one about total strangers walking up to me and asking if I weren 't related to someone, and I was.
There are other such enclaves in North America. There's one in Southwestern Ontario, on the North Shore of Lake Erie, the tobacco-growing region most people drive through on 401. I'm told there's similar areas in North Carolina, and perhaps other parts of Appalachia.
I've always thought that Chicago's South Side Irish were something like this: keen sense of themselves as a group, with group mores and a tendency to marry within the fold, with an identity linked to another country with which there is relatively little contact.
I was going to tell a funny story about how my maternal grandparents lived very close together in Germany but only met when they arrived in the U.S., but according to Google maps there are many towns in Germany which have the same name as the town each of them are from. So I think I'm going to have to print out a map and visit my grandmother in Washington Heights this weekend.
145 -- nice to have an easily visitable grammy. My remaining grandma is in CA, and I don't see her as often as I'd like. Nice that she uses e-mail, though.
I've heard before that Europeans tend to be much more interested in local history than genealogy; it makes sense when, as Matt McG notes, you're surrounded by ruins and lots of old stuff. We Americans, on the other hand, mostly came to this country recently and then moved around a lot, so we don't have such strong connections to particular places. It's more about family, and tracing our people's journeys around the country.
I like genealogy a lot, which is kind of funny since it's mostly a hobby of old ladies.
I can't imagine that there was anyone on earth who didn't think Harris's comments were nonsense prior to learning this new information.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:59 AM
Oh, he wouldn't have said it if he didn't think it would appeal to someone. I'd just like to see a public admission that it makes no sense.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:01 AM
It really wouldn't surprise me if my roommate bought it. I'll have to ask her when I go home this weekend. Last weekend she was all "Ha! They killed Zarqawi! Yay America! Surely this will change everything and they'll be sending the troops home any time now."
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:05 AM
I can't imagine that there was anyone on earth who didn't think Harris's comments were nonsense prior to learning this new information.
Your imagination fails you, Tim.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:07 AM
Is this the DC roommate?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:08 AM
4:"Anyone" implies human. Neither of those two qualify.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:09 AM
It was bizarre (and disturbing and offensive) to hear Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy call the suicides a "PR stunt"—when it is in fact she, as an agent for "public diplomacy," and Rear Admiral Harris who are engaging in the acts of war, spinning tragedy into propaganda.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:11 AM
5 - Yeah, DC roommate. I don't have a roommate in New York.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:11 AM
8: What about gay threesome amnesiac guy? He really was one of my favorites.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:13 AM
Ann Althouse, in her usual "look at me! I'm just being contrarian! No, that's not what I meant! If you're mean to me I'll vote Republican!" way, thought the claim was interesting and not unrealistic.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:15 AM
No, that's my roommate, SCMT.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:15 AM
9 - He was the DC roommate before this one.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:16 AM
I'm surprised at how many people on here are sharing their own rehab experiences. Or have friends who've been in rehab.
I don't know anyone who's been in rehab. Sheltered life? Or another transatlantic difference thingie?
[Totally sympathetic with those who are/have been in rehab, btw]
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:19 AM
Sorry, wrong comment thread!
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:20 AM
I don't know anyone who's been in rehab, I don't think, although I do know some ex drug addicts; they were just never in rehab.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:21 AM
Oops, and I responded. Sigh.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:21 AM
11 -- I thought your roommate was Sausagely -- is he a gay threesome amnesiac now?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:23 AM
re: 15
Yes, ditto. Re: ex-addicts who were never in rehab.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:27 AM
And -- is a gay threesome amnesiac someone who is prone to forget the orgiastic hijincks in which he has taken part? Or something else?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:29 AM
For suicide to be an act of war (or an act of terrorism, or whatever,) doesn't the person killing themself usually have to take someone else out with them? E.g., suicide bombers, kamikazes, etc.
It's hard for me to imagine one of these guys sitting in a cell in Gitmo offing himself and his last thought being, "Take that, America!"
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:29 AM
poor schlub
I think this probably characterizes most of the guys at Guantanamo. You'd think if there was anyone of real import there, they would have done something with them by now.
Anyway, Harris' comments were already nonsense, even before this came out. When your act of war is hurting yourself, it's a pretty ineffective act of war.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:31 AM
I mean, it's much easier for me to imagine a gay threesome amnesiac forgetting the orgiastic hijincks in which he has taken part and thinking, "Take that, America!"
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:31 AM
And then wondering "Why did I just think that? Take what?"
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:32 AM
How can forgetting be an act of war? Is it even willed?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:34 AM
20: Yes, among the things that the fuckers who support Harris can't grasp is the distinction between "Act of protest" and "Act of war." Do they think that when they post their stupid little screeds in favor of Bush's policies that they're engaging in acts of war in the War on Whatever, which means that (by the rules of war) they're legitimate targets for the enemy? I guess they do.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:34 AM
20:
Perhaps they were members of the suicide squad at the end of Monty Python's Life of Brian?
Suicide Squad Leader: We are the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad! Suicide squad, attack!
[they all stab themselves]
Suicide Squad Leader: That showed 'em, huh?
Posted by gg | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:37 AM
24: You can will forgetting.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:39 AM
After all, a lot of people seem to be able to will stupidity.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:54 AM
The gay Indian (amnesiac) roommate story.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:55 AM
And related Unfogged post.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:55 AM
The imminent release, and his not knowing of it, were on this side of the Atlantic reported almost immediately after the news of the suicides.
Posted by emr | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:27 AM
Probably here too. This isn't one of those 'breaking news' blogs -- I think slowly.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:30 AM
It's hard for me to imagine one of these guys sitting in a cell in Gitmo offing himself and his last thought being, "Take that, America!"
During the war in Vietnam there was at least one instance (and I think more, but I've only seen a photograph of one instance) of a Vietnamese monk self-immolating in public in protest.
Hunger strikers in Northern Ireland actually died too.
So I think it's possible that suicide can be a powerful act of protest and propaganda. That said, Harris' comments were a bunch of shit.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:11 PM
The gay Indian (amnesiac) roommate story.
That was what I was trying to invoke here. I was just too lazy to look it up and link to it.
Please note that I have no recollection of ever being gay or Indian or amnesiacal.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:18 PM
Please note that I have no recollection of ever being . . . amnesiacal.
Funny how that works.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:29 PM
For suicide to be an act of war (or an act of terrorism, or whatever,) doesn't the person killing themself usually have to take someone else out with them? E.g., suicide bombers, kamikazes, etc.
I guess technically that if you were an actual terrorist, and if you were the only one in custody in possession of certain secrets that could greatly harm your cause, espose others in your group, etc., and if you thought eventually your captors would torture said secrets out of you, then a pre-emptive suicide could be construed as an act of war.
But that's a lot of ifs.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:36 PM
And I swear that just cannot be me in that photo.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:37 PM
Hmm. Given that the administration seems to equate 'winning the war' with 'winning public opinion' and given that detainees committing suicide in concert damages public opinion, perhaps, if we squint a little and unlike Clinton, inhale, we can construe it as an act of war.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:48 PM
But that would be silly.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 12:52 PM
The thing is, suicide as act of protest isn't exactly inseparable from suicide as act of despair. It's not like it's gonna be your *first* recourse when you want to make a political point.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 1:03 PM
IME suicide is a way out, not a way to fight back. At least that seems to be the reason most forefront in the mind of the victim. "The most common reason given for suicide attempts is to escape or get relief from situations causing extreme distress." [ pdf ] That study focuses specifically on women with borderline personality disorder, but other studies of specific groups bear out the same conclusions.
It's worth remembering also that this particular study, and others I've read like it, were conducted in the United States. I've no idea how cultural differences affect attitudes towards suicide.
Also, Lab's cock does taste like shit. (Just so we're not actually trying to turn this into a discussion of suicide or anything.)
And, thanks wd.
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 1:19 PM
Hey can we tie in "Suicide is Painless" to this somehow?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 1:24 PM
CPEAMN, if you changed your handle to Can't 'Rite Esquire After My Idjit Name, your acronym could be CREAMIN', which would be cool.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 1:44 PM
TMK, a day late huh? Can't go running around changing things now, I've already commited.
Where was this suggestion yesterday when I thought to myself, hmm, ICPEAMN or Ride The Fondue Island Seaside Escalator?
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 1:57 PM
Perhaps we could put it to a vote....
Unfoggedtariat choose my new handle, suggestions welcome.
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:01 PM
A shorter form of " I Can't Put Esquire After My Name" would be either 'Nonarmigerous' or 'Commoner'.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:06 PM
LB, I don't even know how to pronounce Nonarmigerous. Meaning, lacking armor?
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:41 PM
Meaning, not having the right to a coat of arms -- not an Esquire.
(Of course, IAAL, and do sign myself LB, Esq., and I still haven't got a coat of arms. But I should.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:44 PM
Close -- it means lacking a coat of arms, i.e., not from a noble (more or less) family. There's a very funny bit about armigerous vs. non-armigerous branches of a family in "The Jack Randa Hotel" by Alice Munro.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:44 PM
Nonono, "armored ninefold".
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:44 PM
"Having the right to nine coats of arms"
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 2:45 PM
There's no avoiding using your "Esq.", because it serves the purpose of advertising your status, and is called for in letters and on addresses, when signing pleadings, etc., but I never see it after my name without being faintly annoyed at its tone. I'm glad I don't have to wear a wig, anyway.
Oddly enough, I do have coats of arms, on both sides. They're silly too. I think of my clan badge as basically a gang symbol.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:25 PM
Wait, you have to use "Esq."? Are you sure?
That sucks. I don't wanna do that.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:26 PM
Of course, IAAL, and do sign myself LB, Esq.,
Dude, I taught you better.
I never see it after my name without being faintly annoyed at its tone
That is why I use it after the name of opposing counsel in addressing letters, but never after my own. I will not slight people who find the use of Esq. important when used in reference to them, but I do not use it in referring to myself. This has been the general practice at both the firms I have worked at.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:30 PM
53 see 54 (I should check comments on preview).
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:31 PM
Further to 53. I am sure that these things vary by area; I am not qualified to talk about the norms in this regard where IDP practices.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:33 PM
54: Actually, I do what you do. I misstated my practice to indicate that I was 'entitled' to the Esq. as a lawyer, but wasn't actually armigerous.
There's a gender problem as well, of course. Surely I should be LB, Dsl., where Dsl. stands for Demoiselle, or Damsel, whichever.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:34 PM
I will not slight people who find the use of Esq. important when used in reference to them, but I do not use it in referring to myself.
Dude, why aren't you a Democrat?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:43 PM
Have to I don't know; It's not in the bar rules or anything. I meant that its use is often expected between lawyers, when signing as I noted above, and it is one of those things that you just accept as part of the territory. It's also expected by clients, in my experience. If they've asked for a lawyer's letter, it should be there — it's part of what they're paying for.
I've never had any projection problems; nobody every asked me, "You're a lawyer? Really?" as I've seen happen to others, but I do feel compelled by some norms. If you see clients, I was taught it is a good idea to have your diploma and bar admission on the wall behind you, however lame and hokey that feels.
LB, as you know, would not have projection problems either. That "damoselle" business mixes metaphors. I personally have no problem imagining her in armor.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:46 PM
If you see clients, I was taught it is a good idea to have your diploma and bar admission on the wall behind you, however lame and hokey that feels.
I certainly have an "I love me" wall. Though sometimes I wonder why--most of my interactions with clients are on the phone or in their offices; when they do come to the office, we usually meet in a conference room with a fancy view.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:50 PM
By diploma, you mean your law school diploma, right?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 3:58 PM
58: For the tax benefits?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:00 PM
I've often interviewed clients talking to a lawyer for the first time in their lives. You want to be friendly and approachable, but also reassuring. Subtlety and understatement may not be what they need.
I used to be disdainful of lawyer's offices with heavy furniture, leather, huge desks and chairs too. And I've never used them, but I understand their purpose.
Conference rooms with impressive-looking but obsolete and not-updated law books in cases are good for this.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:09 PM
re 52:
Clan badge?
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:10 PM
58: For the tax benefits?
Whoever those people are who get the tax breaks for the rich that one reads about, I can assure you that I am not one.
Dude, why aren't you a Democrat?
I tried explaining this to LizardBreath once, and I think she still is mad at me for some of the things I said, so maybe I should take a pass on answering this question.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:11 PM
Eh, I'm all the way across town. I promise not to hurt you.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:15 PM
64: MacKay, always pronounced Mac-Eye in my family, although M'Kay is standard in the US. Manu Forti, with a hand holding a knife. Subtle, eh?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:16 PM
Subtlety and understatement may not be what they need.
This is a hard thing to learn. I am still working on it. I want to give the client nuance and caution and a full explanation, but as my more experienced partners have pointed out to me, clients mostly do not want that, they just want to know that you will take care of them and that everything will be OK.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:17 PM
As it happens, I too have a coat of arms. Paternal lineage, and not English which Esquire seems to me to quite distinctly be.
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:28 PM
Can you be armigerous without beiing noble? I do have a coat of arms.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 4:48 PM
70:Sure, Esquire doesn't mean noble. The nobles, Baronets and higher in the British system, are a subset of the armigerous.
And you can order up a coat of arms from Bond Street. I'm sure the one in my father's name was done by someone newly-prosperous in the 18th or 19th centuries.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 5:11 PM
I think it's time for a new handle.
Posted by Right Honorable Michael de Quelquepart, Esq. | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 5:36 PM
Yeah, the term for the class below the aristocracy is the gentry. If you're armigerous, you may not be noble, but you ought to be gentle.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 5:37 PM
No coats of arms or tartans for me! But I like to think there's some Sicilian mafia minidons in there somewhere, along with French peasantry chopping off heads.
Posted by Cala Quelquechose de Rabble | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 5:56 PM
I've always been told that it is very bad form to refer to yourself as Esquire.
Of course, I have no idea where my law school diploma is either.
Posted by BQ Esq. | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 6:00 PM
I think it's time for a new handle
You can be Bill S. Preston, Esquire.
Posted by Ted "Theodore" Logan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 6:07 PM
I'm related to Mary Todd Lincoln, Sir Francis Drake, and three pilgrims. And maybe Kenny G. on my dad's side.
Posted by La Contesa Tia Maria de un Lugar Inimaginable | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 6:17 PM
I'm related to Meriwether Lewis. Which explains a lot, actually.
Posted by El Señor Don Teofilo, Duque de Alburquerque y Conde de San Juan | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 6:28 PM
I've got George Washington's overseer, a Revolutionary War general, John Rolf and Pocahontas, and Thomas Jefferson's brother all supposedly in my family tree.
Posted by Daimyo Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 6:32 PM
I've got the vice-president of the Confederacy. My grandmother was a Stephens before she married my grandfather.
Posted by Grand Mufti Apostropher al-Durhami | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:11 PM
Apparently, "I am related to" is the new "I slept with."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:19 PM
I don't know a single ancestor past my great-grandparents. On Mom's side they were Irish peasants -- her parents immigrated; and on Dad's side they were from Queens. My great-grandfather was apparently the best looking drunk in Queens -- after he drank himself to death, the guy at the morgue sympathized with my great-grandmother about losing her son so young.
(There is some earlier family story about someone who immigrated from England to Canada, and from there to Queens, and repeatedly went bankrupt trying to introduce porkpies to Queens as a snack food. But I'm not sure who that was.)
Posted by Rabble | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:19 PM
I'm a Son of the Revolution, Son of the Confederacy, and Son of the Republic of Texas, and Son of the Alamo. But only by way of unknown schmucks.
But this is a good story: my great-great-great-grandfather was so dedicated to the gold standard, he swore he wouldn't shave his beard until William Jennings Bryan won the presidency. Needless to say, a long beard on that man. He also has a cane whose head is a some-odd-karat gold bust of WJB, and that cane is still in my family and totally mine.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:25 PM
(Strike an "and" from before one of those Sons)
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:26 PM
some-odd-karat gold bust of WJB
But not crucified on a cross of gold, because he wouldn't have liked that.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:31 PM
great-great-great-grandfather was so dedicated to the gold standard,
Opposed to it, don't you mean? Bryan was a bimetallist, wasn't he?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:32 PM
Man, I've got nothing on all you goyim. My family tree is just title-less Jews going back as far as the eye can see.
Although, apparently I'm related, by marriage, to Dave Attell.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:33 PM
I think my 82 ties that.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:34 PM
Opposed to it, don't you mean? Bryan was a bimetallist, wasn't he?
That's sort of the whole point of the cross of gold schtick, innit?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:34 PM
Well, yeah. I think Smasher may have some reevaluation of greatgrandpappy's politics to do.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:35 PM
There is a no doubt apocryphal story floating around in my family that we are descendants of a mistress of George IV. Supposedly he built some wonderful new paved road—for the sole purpose of getting to her—near my ancestral home.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:36 PM
Right, opposed. Now that I think about it, grampa's cane should be made with silver, shouldn't it?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:37 PM
Or both -- gold with silver detailing? If it's a gold/silver alloy, that'd be perfect.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:41 PM
My family tree is just title-less Jews going back as far as the eye can see.
I'm descended from a self-employed junk peddler from Mulahof, Russia.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:43 PM
Or so he was described on his death certificate from 1923 (in St. Paul, MN). But apparently he was considered a learned man in Russia. I'm getting this from a "genealogical narrative" of a family tree one of whose leaves I am, which I swear at one point—different edition, I guess—included an anecdote about someone back in Ukraine, who I think would have been my grandmother's grandmother, having been the grand or great-granddaughter of the Baal Shem Tov, and having had four rabbis officiate at her wedding for that reason. But it's not in the edition I have, which I find very disappointing.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:52 PM
trying to introduce porkpies to Queens as a snack food
His problem was an obvious one.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 7:57 PM
My great-grandfather was a barber in Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine in 1905. He participated in the unsuccessful revolution in that year, and one day not long afterward he was in his barbershop and bent down to tie his shoe, at which point a bullet went flying over his head and lodged in a mirror behind him. It was then that he decided to come to America.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:09 PM
My great-grandfather on the one side abandoned the family when my grandmother was a little girl. (Proof that not all were smiling two-parent homes before femin1sm.) He came back when she was sixteen to attempt to take charge of the family, and she threw him out. (Proof that my grandmother kicked ass.)
On the other side, a tiny Italian man from Sicily who raised six kids in Pittsburgh, including my grandfather, who drove a vegetable truck.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:29 PM
My wife's family on one side is mostly from a small town in South-Central Germany. At the time of emancipation, early 19c, they were recognized as living there although hadn't yet been given last names. I understand there's a lot of that; "Ephraim, the Jew and family," like that. By the end of the 19c, both parts of her family lived in Berlin. Her great-grandfather had emigrated to Chicago, where her grandmother was born, but gave up and moved back when his wife died. In '39, her being able to claim American birth was the anchor that got them all out. You can imagine how my wife feels about the plan to disallow American birth "anchors" now.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:35 PM
coal miners and peasants on one side, farmers on the other. but the farmers are related to amelia earhart, so that's sort of cool.
Posted by madam mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:43 PM
On the dad's side, I'm pleased to say the family goes back to the Revolutionary War--through a woman named Lopez. It tickles me to think of joining the DAR (as if) with those credentials.
Mom's side are just all stubborn German farmers, mostly.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:44 PM
78 I have a very close friend whose middle name is Lewis for that very reason.
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:46 PM
Apparently, "I am related to" is the new "I slept with."
I'm related to Tim's mom.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:53 PM
I've got another "immigration" story. My grandfather was, yeah, a Canadian carpenter. Every year during the twenties, he spent months at a time working in the states, sending the money back. All probably illegal, but harder to trace then, with no withholding. Cash payment was the usual way then, as it must be for illegals even now. An "invisible" illegal. Construction collapsed during the depression, and he came home for good.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:54 PM
Going straight up the patrilineal line, my family arrived in Maryland in 1700 from Carsharlton, England and the first born on American soil was 1701.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 8:57 PM
So were they thieves or just ne'er-do-wells, Apo?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:02 PM
Pigfuckers, the lot of them.
(I have no idea, just a chart with names, locations, and dates.)
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:06 PM
All of my mom's grandparents immigrated to the US around the same time (about 100 years ago), while most of the branches of my dad's family have been on this continent so long we don't know when they arrived. Yay intermarriage!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:20 PM
My paternal family came over from Hungary during the 1848 revolutions in Europe. They were Magyars who had sold out and were working for the Hapsburgs; supposedly the revolutionaries burned them in effigy, so they skedaddled to Iowa. A few generations later in this same branch, there's a great-great-uncle who was published in the first issue of Poetry magazine and had a long-running affair with Edna St. Vincent Millay. He also started a fake literary movement called Spectra as a practical joke that apparently was taken seriously for a while; the whole point of it was to mock the more free-form poets, but the parody poems ended up being at least as good as most of his earnest stuff.
On my mom's side is a guy (whose pocket watch I have) who ran away from home in London when he was ten or twelve in the 1880's to become a cabin boy; after sailing around the world a few times, he jumped ship in Southern California, where my Mom was born. There's also a bunch of Norwegian fishermen/sailors in there somewhere.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:31 PM
On my dad's side, I apparently qualify for one of those hoity-hoit clubs because someone came over on one of the first four pilgrim boats. That hoity-hoit line ended up in Whitehorse, Yukon, and intermarried with poor Scots miners (whose last name, probably coincidentally, associates them with a be-tartanned clan), so they're not so hot.
On my mom's side, we go straight to Hyrum Smith (Joseph's older brother, killed at the same time).
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:39 PM
Mom's Mom's family: Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition (which they had not expected) and came ultimately to settle in Jamaica. At some point long about my great-grands, they moved to Los Angeles (and maybe there were intervening points of residence too.) Brush with greatness: my mom grew up in Beverly Hills and as a young kid had some famous movie-star type neighbors. I do not know which ones though.
Mom's Dad's family: Jews who fled pogroms or pogrommy trouble in Poland. I think but am not sure that my grandfather was the first born in the US, and that he was born in Los Angeles. He made some money as an accountant to movie stars but lost it all to gambling and drinking. My grandparents were divorced when my mom was a teenager.
Mom's Step-dad's family: Also Jewish immigrants from Poland. My step-grandfather is a pioneer in biofeedback therapy.
Dad's Mom's family: My great-grandfather was born in Denmark of Swedish parents, and emigrated to the American midwest somewhere, perhaps Wisconsin. My grandmother came to California when she went to UC Berkeley, where she met my grandfather.
Dad's Dad's family: German immigrants from the Nordseekuste, I think the family has been in the US in the neighborhood of 100-150 years. Branches lived in southern NJ (Great Egg Harbor), upstate NY (Ithica), and Indiana (not sure). My great-grandfather earned his Ph. D. in entomology from Cornell, then went to North Dakota to homestead, could not hack it, moved to Delano, CA where he worked the rest of his life as entomologist for a large farm.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:39 PM
Bsaically all whiteys are descended from Carolus Magnus, of course, and probably all Mexicans from Cyrus.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 9:47 PM
And the Jews?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:23 PM
King David.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:39 PM
107: I'm just guessing, pregnant in 1700, sent to America? Probably escaping hanging.
111: Hm. Post-Spanish inquisition Jews in Jamaica? Yikes. Did they end up farming sugar cane, or in trade?
History is so fun!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 10:44 PM
Depending on when in 1701 the child was born, the mother was not necessarily pregnant when she emigrated.
And yes, history is fun.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:02 PM
Right, she might not have been pg when she left the country, but she sure coulda been. And in any case, folks emigrating in 1700 who weren't rich or governors? They had reasons.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:28 PM
What's this about profgrrrrl?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:33 PM
Back in the old country she was profgrrrrlski.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:37 PM
Rich people and governors, of course, just randomly decided to cross the Atlantic.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:38 PM
I am descended from bastards and miscegenators.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:45 PM
No, they did it because they had gotten political appointments and/or invested. As opposed to italicized reasons, which is obviously a euphemism for bad ones.
Jeez.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-13-06 11:46 PM
Re: clan badges and coats of arms and shit...
Lots of Scots claim some kind of vague clan affiliation but there's not a massive amount of real basis to it, I suspect. The clan system only ever really covered the rural part of the Highlands and Islands and was destroyed in the 18th century. Not a huge amount of relevance to a country which was one of the cradles of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and where the vast bulk of people live (and have lived) in the industrial central belt where no-one has spoken Gaelic for about 1000 years or more.
Fwiw, I know nothing about my own family any further back than the mid-to-late 19th century. I'm not even sure if before that they were indigenous to the west coast of Scotland and had been for hundreds of years, or, if they were poor Catholic immigrants from Ulster to Glasgow at some point in the mid 19th century. There's vague family stories and evidence that points both ways but no-one's ever bothered doing any kind of family tree.
I certainly have no clan affiliation, indeed I find the whole tartan and clan thing and that kind of shortbread-tin 'Scottishness' reeks of bullshit. Most of the tartans are 19th century inventions (at best) or 20th century (mostly). It's quite cute for those who really do descend from the Gaelic speaking areas of the west and north-west of the country, for everyone else it's harmless fun but a bit silly.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 12:22 AM
I'll bet it brings in the tourist money, though. Googling my Scottish-seeming last name with, oh, "tartan" or "coat of arms" generated a lot of sites offering travel-packages to show me what I cynically assumed were totally bogus "ancestral lands."
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 12:33 AM
Oh yeah, it brings in the tourist cash. Also, a lot of Scots are fairly uncynical about this stuff. It's not just tourists. I wouldn't want to totally mock this stuff -- it does have a loose basis in historical fact (with the emphasis on 'loose').
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 1:08 AM
Googling "highlandism" or "highlandization" turns up some interesting stuff.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 1:30 AM
I've always been told that it is very bad form to refer to yourself as Esquire.
But within living memory it was standard practice in Britain to address formal letters to "J.Soap, Esq." even if you knew perfectly well that Joe Soap was a bankrupt burglar from Bulgaria.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 3:13 AM
Kids too... I remember getting letters addressed to 'Master Matthew McGrattan, Esq.' Admittedly, they were from relatives.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 3:35 AM
127 and 128: I was confused by this practice the first time that I went to Britain; in the U.S. Esq. is used to refer to lawyers only. I have no idea how this usage evolved, and it doesn't make any sense.
Posted by Bostoniangirl Bostoniangir | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 5:23 AM
BG, possibly the lawyers wanted to give themselves airs and threatened to sue anybody who didn't play along?
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 5:31 AM
101: On the dad's side, I'm pleased to say the family goes back to the Revolutionary War--through a woman named Lopez. It tickles me to think of joining the DAR (as if) with those credentials.
Come on, B. Everybody knows that the Daughters of teh American Revolution are just a bunch of parvenus. It's all about the Colonial Dames. (Actually my grandfather accepted an invitation to become an honorary colonial dame; he was an archivist.)
I thought that they were okay until I met someone in DC who was in town for their annual meeting. She was this awful snooty Southern woman. Is it just my regional prejudice or is it really true that the Southern variant of the geneology fetish is more offensive than the Northern one. I actually thought of joining the Pilgrim Society. There are some real characters affiliated with that.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 5:54 AM
98: My great-grandfather on the one side abandoned the family when my grandmother was a little girl. (Proof that not all were smiling two-parent homes before femin1sm.)
My great-great-grandfather, I think it was, came to the U.S. in the late 19th century, but his mother-in-law told her daughter (his wife) not to go because she would just be his slave. He remarried in the new country, she in the old (it's not clear that this was legal but hey -- I'm descended from the child who was definitely legitimate), which leads to some interesting relationships; some of the people I ordinarily refer to as my cousins are actually half second cousins once removed. I think there's another divorce in the next generation which complicates things too.
My grandfather was born here; his father came to the U.S. maybe around 1910 and sent for them in 1914, but the way I heard it they went to the train station to go the boat and the Russian Army got off, so they waited till after WWI. I always think of him as from Poland but it was the Austro-Hungarian empire when he was born, Russia invaded it pretty much first, and now it seems to be in Ukraine. Probably it was Poland for a year or two after they left.
As you've probably guessed, I'm pretty sure I'm not related to anyone famous since King David.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:12 AM
My step-grandfather is a pioneer in biofeedback therapy.
Actually my grandmother is also such a pioneer. I'm not sure why I would credit the man and not the woman; either raging sexism, or an impulse to credit the tech half of the team rather than the psychology half.
My step-grandfather wrote drivers to feed data from biofeedback machines (EKG, EEG, etc) into personal computers (first Apple II, and later IBM PC's -- I don't believe he ever wrote for Macs), and wrote and writes software to process that data into presentable formats; my grandmother (recently departed) was a psychologist who used these presentations as part of her treatment mode.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:25 AM
mode s/b modality
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:30 AM
Much as religion sometimes annoys me, in the genealogical context it's been helpful for me on two fronts: 1) the mormon edict to follow it means I know everything about my matrilineal side (all dutch, came over in the late 19th century) 2) the almost-total lack of (religious) intermarriage in Egypt means that I know a lot about my patrilineal line because we are part of a relatively small religious sect, which as far as I can tell means my ancestors have been in Egypt since at least the time of Christ, possibly longer.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:32 AM
I have to admit, the genealogical thing doesn't really interest me at all.
I'm very interested in the history and culture of where I am from -- growing up surrounded by Roman and Celtic ruins, castles, etc. tends to do that to you -- and I feel very 'rooted' in where I am from. However, the precise timeline of my own family's movements in and around Scotland and Ulster interests me rather less.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:41 AM
131: Sure, but the woman some conquistador raped who gave birth to the Mexican part of the family line was here way before y'all Colonial whoevers.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:54 AM
My great-grandfather, the story goes, came over here from Poland and settled in New Jersey, with the idea that he'd send for my great-grandmother once he was established. Well, he never did (goes the story) so my great-grandmother picked up the two kids she was left with, walked to the nearest port, and hopped a boat to America, where she showed up on my great-grandfather's doorstep, kicked out (goes the story) the woman he'd shacked up with, and lived unhappily ever after.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 6:56 AM
Hey have you guys read this poem? I just did last night. Wow. "Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,/ Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame."
There is a typo in line 6 -- "though", not "thought".
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 7:25 AM
129, 130: I don't actually know the history of Esq.=Lawyer, but part of it is that in the 19thC in England, being a lawyer was one of the few possible ways for a gentleman to earn money without losing caste -- you could be a lawyer, a clergyman, or in the military. My assumption is that lawyers would, as a result, be particularly punctillious about signing themselves Esq., because they were slightly insecure about their status as members of the gentry. Maybe the American usage arose out of clueless Americans noting that English lawyers were touchy about their entitlement to use Esq., and figuring that it was a signifier of being a lawyer, not just of being a gentleman.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 7:29 AM
LB, I was googling around after this one and found women lawyers who describe themselves as "esquire". You can have no idea how bizarre this looks from over here, like Mr Hillary Clinton.
Actually the ABA site cites Black's Law Dictionary: "In English law, a title of dignity next above gentleman, and below knight. Also a title of office given to sheriffs, serjeants [sic], and barristers at law, justices of the peace, and others", which explains it nicely.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 7:44 AM
It's totally ungendered over here, which I think is silly (see my 57), but that's how it's used. It's like the way doctors use M.D. as a suffix.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 7:48 AM
123-125: I've always been about as skeptical as you about the hoopla. I've a friend who's always trying to get me to join his branch of the Burns Society, wear a kilt and stuff, but I've always felt it was ludicrous. My family were Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, but still.
It should be pointed out though, that in Atlantic Canada it's been possible to live in a largely Scottish world until right up to our time. This despite the bulk of the imigration having occured in the 18th and early 19th Cs. Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief is about this, and that book brought back for me a lot of forgotten memories and impressions; I'm about the age of the characters. Particularly the one about total strangers walking up to me and asking if I weren 't related to someone, and I was.
There are other such enclaves in North America. There's one in Southwestern Ontario, on the North Shore of Lake Erie, the tobacco-growing region most people drive through on 401. I'm told there's similar areas in North Carolina, and perhaps other parts of Appalachia.
I've always thought that Chicago's South Side Irish were something like this: keen sense of themselves as a group, with group mores and a tendency to marry within the fold, with an identity linked to another country with which there is relatively little contact.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 8:10 AM
re: 143
Yeah, hence all the Scottish fiddlers relearning traditional tunes long since dead in Scotland from Cape Breton fiddlers, etc.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 8:40 AM
I was going to tell a funny story about how my maternal grandparents lived very close together in Germany but only met when they arrived in the U.S., but according to Google maps there are many towns in Germany which have the same name as the town each of them are from. So I think I'm going to have to print out a map and visit my grandmother in Washington Heights this weekend.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 9:10 AM
145 -- nice to have an easily visitable grammy. My remaining grandma is in CA, and I don't see her as often as I'd like. Nice that she uses e-mail, though.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 9:21 AM
I've heard before that Europeans tend to be much more interested in local history than genealogy; it makes sense when, as Matt McG notes, you're surrounded by ruins and lots of old stuff. We Americans, on the other hand, mostly came to this country recently and then moved around a lot, so we don't have such strong connections to particular places. It's more about family, and tracing our people's journeys around the country.
I like genealogy a lot, which is kind of funny since it's mostly a hobby of old ladies.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 11:58 AM
Teofilo is a 74-year-old balding woman!
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-14-06 12:00 PM