"You got a face with a view" is a line in a Talking Heads song (see previous post). Another blogger was inspired by the same David Byrne phrase: link. I'm not so hooked on the E.M. Forster nuance (though I did enjoy the filmed version). "Face with a view" also pinged my brain 30 years ago when that song first came out.
It seems that "face" and "view" express a sort of grammatical/real world reflection.
Face or facie, is a replacement word in English. Like so many other names of body parts, face replaced the Old English ondwlita or andwlita (which survived briefly in Middle English as anleth). Given the Norman Conquest, we might look to French to see a deeper meaning of face, but the French gave up the use of face for "front of the head" in the 17th century and replaced it with visage (older vis), back-formed from Latin visus "sight" derived from the Latin verb videre. Of course view derives from videre as well.
Now vision and view also mean sight and there is a parallel Germanic etymology behind the word sight. In modern German, das Gesicht means face (in which you might see the root Sicht, cognate with the English word sight = view). But there's an even older German word, Antlitz (used only poetically these days much as we'd use visage). Antlitz in turn relates back etymologically to the Old English andwlita. What a strange circle. It's like looking at a face in the mirror.
Showing posts with label 1983. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1983. Show all posts
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Real Life's a Beach (cont'd)
This is a continuing series which began here
News of the dioxin contamination at Times Beach came at a tense time for the EPA. Administrator Burford was under intense pressure from Congress to yield any documents which would reveal whether the agency had been lax in enforcing hazardous waste and Superfund laws. Burford maintained that she was under instructions from President Reagan not to turn over certain documents to Congress because they might jeopardize on-going court cases against waste producers. [11] In early February, 1983, EPA assistant administrator in charge of waste clean up and Superfund, Rita Lavelle, was fired by President Reagan amid allegations that she had used the Superfund for political leverage in favor of Republican candidates. Lavelle allegedly told Missouri officials not to push too hard for compensation on dioxin problems there because "that will be playing right into the hands of Ted Kennedy." [12] It was this aura of political scandal which led The New York Times to charge that the Missouri dioxin case "has been shaped at every turn by politics, not public health." [13] Pushed perhaps a little faster than she would have been otherwise, administrator Burford announced February 22, 1983 that the federal government would buy Times Beach "to ensure that that public health is protected." [14]
The buy-out decision was reached on Monday, February 20, in a telephone conference between Burford, Lee M. Thomas, head of a Presidential Task Force on Times Beach, and an official at CDC in Atalanta. The White House welcomed the decision on the part of the EPA, and Presidential aides said they expected the decision to be viewed as a positive example of how the agency can function. Prior to the decision, the White House received almost daily reports and President Reagan had been briefed weekly on the affair. This interest was credited with speeding the decision. [15]
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[11] Margaret W. Freivogel, "EPA denial of Dioxin File assailed," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3 Dec., 1982, sec A, p. 1.
[12] Maureen Dowd, "Shoring up a shaken EPA," Time, 7 Mar., 1983, vol. 121, p. 33. At Lavelle's Senate hearing, which this article reports, Lavelle denied saying it. But Theodore Bernstein, a Missouri State official who was at the meeting, commented: "She said it. I was a little flabbergasted."
[13] One EPA Buy-out is not a Policy," an editorial, The New York Times, 25 Feb., 1983, sec A, p. 30.
[14] Environmental Protection Agency, Press release, 22 Feb., 1983 R30.
[15] Gerald Boyd, "White House pressed hard for decision," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 Feb., 1983, sec A, p. 1.
News of the dioxin contamination at Times Beach came at a tense time for the EPA. Administrator Burford was under intense pressure from Congress to yield any documents which would reveal whether the agency had been lax in enforcing hazardous waste and Superfund laws. Burford maintained that she was under instructions from President Reagan not to turn over certain documents to Congress because they might jeopardize on-going court cases against waste producers. [11] In early February, 1983, EPA assistant administrator in charge of waste clean up and Superfund, Rita Lavelle, was fired by President Reagan amid allegations that she had used the Superfund for political leverage in favor of Republican candidates. Lavelle allegedly told Missouri officials not to push too hard for compensation on dioxin problems there because "that will be playing right into the hands of Ted Kennedy." [12] It was this aura of political scandal which led The New York Times to charge that the Missouri dioxin case "has been shaped at every turn by politics, not public health." [13] Pushed perhaps a little faster than she would have been otherwise, administrator Burford announced February 22, 1983 that the federal government would buy Times Beach "to ensure that that public health is protected." [14]
The buy-out decision was reached on Monday, February 20, in a telephone conference between Burford, Lee M. Thomas, head of a Presidential Task Force on Times Beach, and an official at CDC in Atalanta. The White House welcomed the decision on the part of the EPA, and Presidential aides said they expected the decision to be viewed as a positive example of how the agency can function. Prior to the decision, the White House received almost daily reports and President Reagan had been briefed weekly on the affair. This interest was credited with speeding the decision. [15]
______________________
[11] Margaret W. Freivogel, "EPA denial of Dioxin File assailed," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3 Dec., 1982, sec A, p. 1.
[12] Maureen Dowd, "Shoring up a shaken EPA," Time, 7 Mar., 1983, vol. 121, p. 33. At Lavelle's Senate hearing, which this article reports, Lavelle denied saying it. But Theodore Bernstein, a Missouri State official who was at the meeting, commented: "She said it. I was a little flabbergasted."
[13] One EPA Buy-out is not a Policy," an editorial, The New York Times, 25 Feb., 1983, sec A, p. 30.
[14] Environmental Protection Agency, Press release, 22 Feb., 1983 R30.
[15] Gerald Boyd, "White House pressed hard for decision," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 Feb., 1983, sec A, p. 1.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Real Life's a Beach*
On February 22, 1983, in an unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the United States Government would buy the entire town of Times Beach, Missouri. The EPA decided that the action was necessary after the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released completed analyses of extensive soil sampling in the area and warned that the hazard posed by dioxin contamination was "a continuing threat to the health of citizens of the community." [1] An examination of the Times Beach incident, however, shows that the action resulted from a more complex sequence of events of which dioxin was but a part. The presence of dioxin at Times Beach though, points out problems our scientific and regulatory system have in handling the undefined hazards of potentially dangerous substances like dioxin.
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[1] Environmental Protection Agency, Press Release, 22 Feb. 1983, R30.
* I dedicate this and the subsequent multi part continuations to the generation of men and women chemists who lost their jobs or never had jobs, in part to overzealous and fear based tactics. I originally wrote this series as a single unpublished piece of journalism. I consider the story well sourced and it was vetted by a University professor at the time. I don't have electronic links to many of the original sources, but they are there, if need be.
_____________________
[1] Environmental Protection Agency, Press Release, 22 Feb. 1983, R30.
* I dedicate this and the subsequent multi part continuations to the generation of men and women chemists who lost their jobs or never had jobs, in part to overzealous and fear based tactics. I originally wrote this series as a single unpublished piece of journalism. I consider the story well sourced and it was vetted by a University professor at the time. I don't have electronic links to many of the original sources, but they are there, if need be.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
50 Years Of MyTunes: 1983
Speaking In Tongues by The Talking Heads. There are just so many good songs on this album like Burning Down the House, Slippery People, Swamp, Girlfriend Is Better, and Pull up the Roots. The Talking Heads were immortalized in Jonathon Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984).
War by U2. The last U2 album that I bought. I got off the bandwagon when others got on. Was it the overt politics?
Every Breath You Take by the The Police. Sting gave full reign expression to his stalker obsession with his ex-wife.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. Oh yeah, they do.
Radio Free Europe R.E.M. were just starting out.
Pink Houses by John Mellencamp who sang about America from a Hoosier point of view. Something about this song reminds me of Meadhouse.
Photograph by Def Leppard. Big hit from their album Pyromania. I thought the name Def Leppard was a pun on the band Sun Blind Lion but I guess I was wrong. Hi Darcy!
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes. I used to like this band a lot. I think Simon still likes them.
Modern Love and China Girl by David Bowie shows more cultural sensitivity than Rod Stewart did when he sang about his "slit-eyed lady" in Every Picture Tells a Story.
99 Luftballoons by Nena. A side-by-side comparison of the German and English lyrics reveals how lame and softened the English version lyrics are. link The original German version makes several references to Nazi-era and post war imagery and jibes with the post-War pacifist streak so prevalent in German society.
Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol. I figured out that part of Billy Idol's appeal was his sneer which is on full display here.
Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies The song captures the Zeitgeist.
When The Shit Hits The Fan by The Circle Jerks. I linked to the "unplugged" version because the lyrics are easier to follow. Sample lyrics:
In a sluggish economyAge of Consent by New Order. These guys were all that was left of Joy Division after Ian Curtis's suicide in 1980.
Inflation, recession,
Hits the Land of the Free.
Standing on an employment line.
Blame the government for hard times.
We just get by, however we can.
We all gotta duck when the shit hits the fan.
Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble from their debut Texas Flood. SRV came out of Texas. A record deal brokered by the legendary John Hammond launched his career. I was lucky enough to see SRV twice before his premature death.
The New World by X from More Fun in the World. When John Doe and Exene sang "It was better before before they voted for what's-his-name" they were singing about Ronald Reagan. How's that working out for you these days Mr. Doe?
Sharp Dressed Man & Legs by ZZ Top. Where were these guys for the last 10 years? It may have taken that long to grow out those beards. Hot chicks in the video.
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