Latin Lesson: ...About That...

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Sunday May 24, 2009 · 4:06 PM PDT

2009/05/24 · 16:06

So I have another Latin Lesson written up, but I'm afraid I won't be posting it. Instead, I am deciding I'm going to tenderly place my current UID into the dustbin of history, to be forgotten.

I'll be back in a bit. But I likely will not be taking my Latin lessons back up when I do. I'm sorry about that, since I feel obligated to continue them, and that's probably why I didn't GBCW a week or more ago, but the time is rapidly approaching, I feel, when I need to disconnect from this anonymous face and pick up my real public face to use here, as well.

I hope others will at some point do something similar, perhaps pick up where I left off, but I also understand how difficult and time consuming it is to put together a lesson, and diary.

So this isn't the end of my time on Daily Kos, but it is with Latin lessons, and it is under this UID. So this is not good bye for good, but it is for the person you've known as cjallen. I'll be back, and this time, as myself.

cjallen

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Sunday May 17, 2009 · 4:48 PM PDT

2009/05/17 · 16:48

Generally Latin letters are pronounced the same as their English counterparts, but there are a few key exceptions.

C & G. C as in Caesar. However, nowadays we often pronounce Caesar as if it were spelled Seezer. In fact, in Latin C is always hard, never soft. In other words, it is always pronounced like a K, and never like an S. So Caesar is more like the German Kaiser, unsurprisingly.

G, as well, is always hard and never soft. So when we have the word lex (law), it's genitive form is legis, and rather than being pronounced like legislature (which is obviously derived from the Latin word), the G in legis is pronounced like the G in Vegas, as in Las Vegas.

C and G also were interchanged, the history is unclear to me (something about the Etruscan alphabet being borrowed, and not having the same sounds, but I don't care to explain any further), but it is the reason that sometimes we see the nomen (name) Caius, and sometimes we see Gaius, or like wise, sometimes we see Cnaeus, and sometimes we see Gnaeus. The names, though, when abbreviated, always use C rather than G. So, for example, Gaius Iulius Caesar would be C Iulius Caesar, or Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) would be Cn Pompeius Magnus.

cjallen

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Sunday May 10, 2009 · 1:50 PM PDT

2009/05/10 · 13:50

Hey all, I'm planning on doing some fairly basic Latin lessons as an occasional diary series, because, well, I lost interest in the commitment to researching my last series. I have a couple in the can, and if there's some interest, I'll keep working.

The Classical Latin alphabet, like AFAIK all Western alphabets, is derived from an ancient Semitic alphabet. It is very similar to the Greek, and the other alphabets of the West, and is a primary source of the English. Therefore, it is very familiar to most of us.

It has a few fewer letters, however, and they don't all function in the same ways that we are used to. The following letters are in the Latin alphabet:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
L
M
N
O
p
Q
R
S
T
U
X
Y
Z

cjallen

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Friday May 08, 2009 · 6:10 PM PDT

2009/05/08 · 18:10

It wasn't my parents. It wasn't a life-changing experience. It wasn't even a choice. For me, believing in God is just part of life, something that I can't shake anymore than I can myself.

My parents were not religious. They raised us without any gods, or religion, or any spirituality, really. But I do attribute my belief in God to part of my upbringing: they chose to raise me in a fairly conservative rural area, in which we were surrounded by colonies of Mennonites, Mormons, and Orthodox Old Believers. When everyone around you acts like God is a given, I guess maybe its hard to not believe.

Going to a rural, public school, I was the only student I can recall who claimed not to believe in God. It was not true, but I claimed it, because I thought it was the case, and because the rest of my family didn't. It took me along time to realize that, in fact, all of that time when I'd been claiming I didn't believe in God, I'd always had a funny feeling when making the rational argument against one.

cjallen

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Sunday May 03, 2009 · 12:23 PM PDT

2009/05/03 · 12:23

This is the final part of my three-part series. This part has been updated from the original piece that I wrote to reflect the new reality post-2008, and I even included Arlen Specter's party-switch in my numbers. In this section, I show how Democrats have been making gains across the nation, and how either they could create a long-term super-majority, or, on the other hand, the Republicans may be able to make a comeback.

Part I
Part II

This is from an essay I wrote nearly a year ago. I wouldn't try to assert now all that I did then, but the essay is what it is. I was attempting to diagnose the disaster that Republicans had put themselves in, and predict where it could take them. Part I discusses the kind of Republican that I feel has taken over their party. Part II will discuss their takeover of the party. Part III discusses how this is a recipe for disaster if they aren't toppled by other Republican factions.

cjallen

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Saturday May 02, 2009 · 4:09 PM PDT

2009/05/02 · 16:09

This is from an essay I wrote nearly a year ago. I wouldn't try to assert now all that I did then, but the essay is what it is. I was attempting to diagnose the disaster that Republicans had put themselves in, and predict where it could take them. Part I discusses the kind of Republican that I feel has taken over their party. Part II will discuss their takeover of the party. Part III discusses how this is a recipe for disaster if they aren't toppled by other Republican factions.

Part I

cjallen

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Friday May 01, 2009 · 1:18 PM PDT

2009/05/01 · 13:18

This is from an essay I wrote nearly a year ago. I don't wouldn't try to assert now all that I did then, but the essay is what it is. I was attempting to diagnose the disaster that Republicans had put themselves in, and predict where it could take them. Part I discusses the kind of Republican that I feel has taken over their party. Part II will discuss their takeover of the party. Part III discusses how this is a recipe for disaster if they aren't toppled by other Republican factions.

cjallen

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Tuesday April 14, 2009 · 11:36 PM PDT

2009/04/14 · 23:36

A fairly well respected member of our community, in fact, someone I have respected very much in the past, reminded me of one reason why I do not consider myself a secularist. This person asserted that the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, are the highest authorities on the law, and because I stated that the courts have made improper decisions and violated people's natural rights (which, by the way, are recognized in our founding documents), I was compared to people who bomb abortion clinics.

I truly find it troubling that so few people who I have discussed the issue with in the past actually believe in natural rights and natural law. Not only, as I said, are these enshrined in our founding documents, but the leaders of early liberalism were natural rights thinkers. Their belief in natural rights was generally the foundation of their liberalism.

cjallen

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Wednesday March 18, 2009 · 10:06 PM PDT

2009/03/18 · 22:06

Oregon Democrats currently hold 60% of seats in both the state senate and state house, with 18/30 and 36/60, respectively. One might be reasonable in thinking that, since Oregon was recently something of a swing state, this might be as far as Democrats can get in Oregon. One would be wrong.

Every seat Democrats currently hold in the state legislature has more registered Democrats than Republicans. There are an additional three seats in each house where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, and all are up in 2010, meaning if Democrats only take and hold those seats with Democratic registration advantages, they would hold 70% of the state senate, and 65% of the state house.

cjallen

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Saturday March 07, 2009 · 1:46 PM PST

2009/03/07 · 13:46

Every seat Democrats currently hold in the state legislature has more registered Democrats than Republicans. There are an additional three seats in each house where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, and all are up in 2010, meaning if Democrats only take and hold only those seats with Democratic registration advantages, they would hold 70% of the state senate, and 65% of the state house.

cjallen

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Friday December 12, 2008 · 10:27 AM PST

2008/12/12 · 10:27

They need to get Joe Biden or somebody who can speak with anger on the TV on Sunday night, in Detroit in front of a bunch of UAW members, and have them say something like this:

When those 35 Senators voted against the bailout of American automakers, even though it wasn't the best bill we could've passed, they voted against every worker from those companies. They voted against everyone whose job depends on those auto jobs being there. They voted against Detroit, they voted against Michigan, they voted against the Midwest, and they voted against America.

Lets be clear: they didn't just vote against a bill. They voted against millions of jobs for Americans at a time when we desperately need them. They voted in favor of you having to move out of your house because you'll no longer be able to afford it. They voted for you selling one of your cars so you can pay the bills. They voted for you freezing over the winter because you'll not be able to afford to heat your home. They voted for you eating ramen noodles because you'll not have the money for real meals.

cjallen

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Monday November 03, 2008 · 9:30 PM PST

2008/11/03 · 21:30

In 2004, the Democratic Party sunk to a historic low in the South. While heading into the election, we had 15 senators in the South (including Maryland and Delaware, and the Census Bureau does), afterwards, we dropped down to 10, with only 1 Democratic senator in all of the Deep South, for the first time in ages. Democrats had only 59 US House seats in the South, compared to the Republicans 95. Democrats were only 7 of the region’s 16 governors. Then things changed a little bit.

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Latin Lesson: ...About That...

Latin Lesson: Letter Pronunciation

Latin Lesson: The Latin Alphabet

Why I Believe in God.

Present and Potential of the Republican Party, the End.

Present and Potential of the Republican Party, Pt. II

Present and Potential of the Republican Party, Pt. I

Why I'm not Entirely a Secularist

2010: Low-Hanging Fruit for Oregon Democrats II

2010: Low-Hanging Fruit for Oregon Democrats

Somebody Needs to Say This.

The Democratic Recapture of the South