The Trouble With Assuming Political Incorrectness

The Toronto District School Board is replacing the word chief with manager because they believe they are being politically correct in doing so. Here’s the kicker: No indigenous person or group asked the Toronto District School Board to make these changes. That’s all on the Toronto District School Board.

SIDE NOTE:  The term ‘chief’ as it pertains to Indigenous peoples in North America is a colonial construct.  You can read more about that HERE.

But let’s take a look at how things are devolving these days. If the word chief is thought of by some to be politically incorrect in a school setting, what’s going to happen elsewhere in society?

How will this impact on businesses? Are the terms CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) doomed to be phased out? Someone who is a CEO or a CFO is more than just a manager (to go with the replacement the Toronto District School Board has settled on using).

According to the dictionary, a chief is a leader or ruler of a people or a clan or an organized body of people. The chief is the highest in authority.

It doesn’t sound right to have a Lead Executive Officer or Lead Financial Officer as it diminishes the responsibilities such positions carry. It doesn’t sound right to have an Executive Ruler or a Financial Ruler as it bring too much power to these positions.

Chief also means most important and highest in power or position, but you certainly can’t call someone Most Important Executive Officer or Most Important Financial Officer. What about all the others at countless businesses and organizations around the globe? Who determines which is most important?

And Highest Executive Officer or Highest Financial Officer just leads so many to think inappropriate thoughts about what these officers do while at work as well as in their off time. After all, would you want to deal with the Highest Executive Officer or Highest Financial Officer, and if you did, wouldn’t some small part of you wonder if you should prepare for an unexpected police raid?

I’m loathe to considering celebrity to replace chief even though some are celebrities (or act like they are). And I’m loathe to consider superstar even though it’s a fact there are some serious superstars in those business roles.

I’m not crazy with using daredevil, demigod, or diva for obvious reasons. Replacing chief with ace just sounds silly, don’t you agree?

I don’t believe executive would work well as in Executive Executive Director. And we can probably strike big cheese, big gun, big wheel, big enchilada, head honcho, top dog, and great kahuna from the list as well.

Somehow taskmaster and task mistress leave the wrong impression (one best left in the hands of authors of erotica stories and the likes) as does dominator or dominatrix.

Once we start down this slippery slope, things can only get worse. Imagine having to find another way of describing an economy’s chief exports. You can’t just substitute a synonym for chief and run with it without sounding pretentious.

And that’s the chief — er, main — problem with being overly politically correct these days. Perfectly good terms are being replaced because one word, taken out of context, might offend or possibly offend or allegedly offend (because sometimes those who claim to be offended are just looking to stir the pot) someone somewhere.

I don’t know where the Toronto District School Board got the idea it had to replace the word chief with the word manager but it did, and now this has opened up a can of worms the likes of which  haven’t been seen since the news last Spring reporting on culinary historian Michael W. Twitty’s allegation that barbeque was an appropriation of African-American and Native culture.  Michael, the first time a caveman or cavewoman decided to cook food over an open flame  is the first instance of barbeque existing, so pretty much anyone who figured out how to do that back then can lay claim to that discovery without tagging any culture in particular as being the originator of this style of cuisine.

SIDE NOTE:  Mr. Twitty also claimed that there’s such a thing as cultural culinary injustice, and that has to do with someone building a successful business on what they cook.  I don’t see that as cultural culinary injustice.  I see that as the entrepreneurial spirit rising to the occasion, and paying off for the hardworking entrepreneur.  But I digress.

Back in 1886, Rudyard Kipling wrote and published his poem “The Betrothed.” One line among the many stands out for its aptness to this situation: A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Sometimes a word is just a word, no more and no less.  And sometimes people see more in a word than what was there in the first place.  I guess you could say that’s the chief point of this essay.

Elyse Bruce

 

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Creative Types Beware!

According to some medical professionals, daydreaming could actually be harmful to your health and indicative of maladaptive daydreaming disorder (MD). Yes, you read that right. If you’re an author or an artist, a songwriter or a sculptor, or indulge in any profession where creativity is a major part of your success, there are medical professionals who are willing and ready to label you with a disorder!

What exactly is maladaptive daydreaming disorder or MD (not to be mistaken for the MD that’s usually found after a medical doctor’s name)? Supposedly it is extensive daydreaming that replaces human interaction with extensive fantasies that creative types envision in their own minds. Of course, it would be far worse if it was extensive daydreaming that replaces human interaction with extensive fantasies that creative types envision in other people’s minds.

But here’s the kicker: As much as this is the latest buzz word in some circles, maladaptive daydreaming disorder (or MD as it is otherwise known) is not a medically recognized term. In other words, you aren’t going to find it in the latest edition of the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition) or the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition) or any other diagnostic manual. Well not yet, anyways.

The concept of maladaptive daydreaming disorder was first coined by Eli Sómer, Ph.D., back in 2002, and it’s taken 15 years for the mainstream to find out about it. I suppose it was just a matter of time before being creative was seen as a disorder, and that time has only just taken hold of the general population.

How do you know if you suffer from maladaptive daydreaming disorder? Certain topics of conversation can trigger daydreaming that distracts the person from real life. Certain sensory stimuli such as noises or smells can trigger daydreams that distract the person from real life. Certain physical experiences can trigger daydreams that distract the person from real life. Up until recently, that was known as inspiration, but I guess we were all mistaken. It’s not inspiration: It’s maladaptive daydreaming disorder!

Other common symptoms of maladaptive daydreaming disorder include:

• extremely vivid daydreams with their own characters, settings, plots, and other detailed, story-like features
• daydreams triggered by real-life events
• difficulty completing everyday tasks
• difficulty sleeping at night
• an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming
• performing repetitive movements while daydreaming
• making facial expressions while daydreaming
• whispering and talking while daydreaming
• daydreaming for lengthy periods (many minutes to hours)

The strange thing about all those allegedly common symptoms of maladaptive daydreaming disorder is that they are also important aspects of creating art. Ask any creative type if they suffer some, or all, of the aforementioned allegedly common symptoms of maladaptive daydream disorder and they’ll assure you that they have experienced all of those in varying degrees at different times while they were busy working on a project.

It’s called being inspired.

It’s called working at your craft.

Sometimes it’s even considered genius!

The funniest part about professionals touting maladaptive daydreaming disorder as a problem is that they are also claiming that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) are co-morbidities that happen alongside maladaptive daydreaming disorder (MD). In other words, those with the worst form of MD also have OCD and ADHD so really, what they have is MOCA 4D (not to be mistaken with WD-40 or anything made with the feature-rich JavaScript test framework known as Mocha or the high quality type of coffee made from a specific coffee bean also known as Mocha or the seaport in the Republic of Yemen on the Red Sea which is known as Mocha).

This may all seem like a bad piece of fiction, however, if you do a little Internet research of your own, you’ll quickly discover that what I’ve shared with you today is no conspiracy theory. It’s no early April Fool’s joke. It’s not even a parody of some very serious disorder. People out there are carrying on about destructiveness of maladaptive daydreaming disorder. I wonder how long it’s going to be before we hear of people self-diagnosing with maladaptive daydreaming disorder so they can put on a brave face, say they are working hard at keeping their MD in check, and proudly showing how little they have done that might be considered creative, artistic, or crafty.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in society, creative types the world over will now have to accept that they have some sort of horrible “disorder” when they are busy engaged in professional pursuits that require active and extended dreaming that replaces human interaction.

“Oh, the irony of it all,” the author/artist/composer/singer-songwriter exclaimed sarcastically.

 

Shuffle Off To Buffalo and Other Parts Unknown

Sometimes we recognize old songs without realizing they were originally songs from a musical before they became radio hits.  I love songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), and 42^nd Street is a musical that spawned a number of Warren and Dubin radio hits (who also had cameo roles in the movie version of the musical).

In a nutshell, 42^nd Street is about small-town Pennsylvania Peggy Sawyer (played by Ruby Keeler in the movie) who hits out by moving to New York City in the hopes that she’ll make her mark in Broadway.

Peggy Sawyer finds herself as a member of the chorus much to the dismay of Broadway diva Dorothy Brock (played by Bebe Daniels in the movie) who is romantically involved with the financial backer of the production, the very wealthy Abner Dillon (played by Guy Kibbee in the movie) who, unlike the director Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter in the movie), didn’t lose all his money in the stock market crash of 1929.  But behind Abner’s back, Dorothy is seeing her Pat Denning (played by George Brent in the movie) and thus the stage is set (pardon the pun).

The 42^nd Street Special was a train that left Los Angeles on 20 February 1933, headed to President  Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inauguration on 4 March 1933 – the day after the movie version of the musical premiered in New York.  On board the train were stars such as Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Loretta Young, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  It was an amazing way to draw attention to the film and captured the attention of the country in the middle of a bleak period in American history.

 

The train trip extravaganza began as an idea courtesy of Warner Brothers studios publicity chief, Charlie Einfeld.  The Depression had seen the number of moviegoers drop by more than fifty percent in the three years since the Crash, and Warner Brothers studios was dealing with huge losses to the tune of $14 MILLION USD.  This publicity stunt was going to set the studio back another $400,000 USD.

During the election campaign, the Warner brothers had backed Franklin Delano Roosevelt while MGM studios’ Louis B. Mayer had backed Herbert Hoover.  The spectacle was promoted in the media as “the greatest train ride since Paul Revere.”

General Electric, seeing an opportunity to get in on the publicity, co-sponsored and fully equipped the six-coach express train with outdoor lights, speakers, and an all-electric kitchen with what was then considered to be a state-of-the-art electric oven, refrigerator, and dishwasher.  At every stop (which totaled 30 in the space of 17 days), the public was invited to tour the kitchen car and see for themselves what these amazing appliances looked like.

With so many wonderful songs to choose from to include in this entry, I’ve gone with these for this article.  “Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet” sung by Ruby Keeler is mesmerizing.

 

“You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me” sung by Bebe Daniels is fun and cheeky.

“I’m Young And Healthy” sung by a very young Dick Powell (who in later years was known for his role as Nick Charles in the Thin Man movie series).

 

The song that first introduced me to 42^nd Street was one I heard courtesy of the Bugs Bunny cartoons.  As a child, I had no idea where Buffalo was exactly, but the song was something I recognized and sang along to before I was old enough to attend kindergarten.    “Shuffle Off To Buffalo” was the kind of song that resonated with children as much as it did with adults.  The scene with this song in the movie version of 42^nd Street makes the song even more fun than the Bugs Bunny segment (which was absolutely memorable and completely amusing).

The golden age of musicals may have been decades ago but the songs from that era still stand up to inspection in this generation, don’t you agree?

Elyse Bruce

Ice Under Pressure

Back in 1981, David Bowie (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016) and the members of Queen co-wrote “Under Pressure” that was included on Queen’s album “Hot Space” that was released the following year. It hit the top spot on the charts in the UK, but peaked at the 29th spot in the U.S. The song was a staple of Queen concerts until the band stopped touring in 1986.  Even though David Bowie was instrumental in the song’s creation, he chose not to include it in his live performances until 1992 when he sang the song as a duet with Annie Lennox at the tribute concert for Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury (5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991).

It’s never been a secret that American rapper Robert Matthew Van Winkle aka Vanilla Ice sampled the bass line from “Under Pressure” for his hit, “Ice Ice Baby.”  The Vanilla Ice song was released on his 1989 debut album “Hooked” and a year later, on his national debut album “To The Extreme.”

Now this was back in the early days of sampling.  Legal precedent wasn’t carved in stone yet.  Things weren’t playing out very well in most of the industry’s opinion.

Neither David Bowie now Queen were credited as co-writers of the “Ice Ice Baby” and they saw none of the royalties … that is, until the lawsuit was settled. Vanilla Ice argued that he had added a beat between notes and because of that, the two songs were completely different songs. Of course, in later years, he admitted that he wasn’t serious about using that as a defense. Still, the situation was serious enough for Queen and David Bowie to threaten to sue Vanilla Ice for copyright infringement.

At the end of the day, Vanilla Ice thought it was more prudent to settle out of court for an undisclosed sum of money and to give David Bowie and Queen songwriting credits on the “Ice Ice Baby” track.  For Vanilla Ice, because “Ice Ice Baby” was making a name for him as a rapper, losing all rights to his song could prove disastrous to his career which is why he opted for the out of court settlement.

So whether you’re a fan of David Bowie or Queen, or a fan of Vanilla Ice, you have to admit that the bass line is catchy with enough punch to carry two songs to the charts.  What do you think?

What Do Cows and Capitol Records Have In Common?

Sometimes popular musicians and singers go out with great fanfare and fans remember them for decades.  Sometimes their names fade into obscurity despite a large catalogue of quality recordings.

Ella Mae Morse  (12 September 1924 – 16 October 1999) was a big band vocalist whose 1942 hit “Cow Cow Boogie” was responsible for giving Capitol Records (at that point, a new label) its first million seller.  Although Ella Mae was 18 years old at the time, she was already a veteran vocalist having sung in her father’s nightclub band since she was nine years old.

She had drive and ambition, and auditioned for the Jimmy Dorsey band when she was 14 years old (although she claimed to be 19 to make sure she was allowed to audition).  She passed the audition and got the job, but the jig was up when the school board informed Mr. Dorsey that as his band’s vocalist, he was responsible for her care.  He fired her instead.

When she signed with Capitol Records as a soloist when she was 18 years old, on the strength of the success of “Cow Cow Boogie” her path was set.

She remained with Capital Records for 15 years before taking time off to marry and start a family.  Lucky in her professional life, she wasn’t quite as lucky in her personal life and wound up marrying four times although most blogs and Wikipedia incorrectly state she was married twice.

She married pianist Richard “Dick Walters” Showalter in 1941.

Her next husband was U.S. Navy doctor Marvin Leonard Gerber.

Her third husband was Glen Kendall.

Her fourth husband and last husband (to whom she was married for forty years) was Jack Bradford — a carpenter by trade.

Her recordings stand the test of time, and to prove this, I’m including three YouTube videos of her other well-known hits.

 

Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays

Bob Geldof “I Don’t Like Mondays” after reading a telex report about a shooting incident at an elementary school in California, while at Georgia State University’s campus radio station, WRAS, on  January 29, 1979.  The shooter was 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer.

Speaking with a San Diego Evening Tribune reporter, she stated her reason for shooting elementary school students was simply: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”   She told police negotiators: “It was a lot of fun seeing children shot.”

In all, she injured eight students and one police officer, and killed the school principal as well as the school custodian both of whom had rushed out to protect the students as Spencer fired off rounds.

Six months later, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was released and it became a Number One hit single in the UK for Irish band “The Boomtown Rats” for four weeks in the summer of ’79.  The song also did well on the music charts in other countries.

Brenda Ann Spencer’s family launched a lawsuit to prevent the song from being released in the U.S.   They were unsuccessful in blocking its release. That being said, the single only reached #73 on the US Billboard Hot 100 before falling off the charts.  But whether it was on the charts didn’t stop it from being recognized the world over for decades afterwards.

Spencer pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. She has been up for parole four times (1993, 1998, 2001, and 2005 although she withdrew her request for appeal filed in 1998) and can apply for parole again in 2019.

Art — whether it’s literature or music or any other discipline — records moments in time for posterity.  Sometimes what it records is beautiful.  Sometimes it’s horrific.  But let it never be said that what’s recorded lacks pieces of facts and grains of truth.

Elyse Bruce

Hoop Appropriation

Pitzer College in California was the recent victim of cultural appropriation shaming.  A group of Latino students was responsible for graffiti painted on the wall of a campus dormitory that made it clear how they felt about what they felt was cultural appropriation.

The Latino students believe that hoop earrings are part of their heritage and as such, white students should not be wearing hoop earrings.  Ever.

I guess no one told these outraged students that hoops have been around for hundreds of years.  Even William Shakespeare wrote of hoops of steel in Act 1, Scene 3 of “Hamlet.”  I suppose the argument could be made that Shakespeare heard about hoops of steel from explorers to the New World upon their return to England if someone cares to make that argument.

Except that even with excluding Shakespeare from the discussion, there are going to be problems justifying how hoops – and most specifically hoop earrings – are the sole property of the Latino culture.

Hoop earrings are found in ancient Rome and ancient Greece.   The earliest archaeological evidence that exists when it comes to hoop earrings date back to Sumeria and 2500 B.C.

It’s doubtful that Sumerians traveled to this continent, saw hoop earrings on women over here, then journeyed back to Sumeria just so they could appropriate culture in the name of being fashionable.

NOTE 1:  According to archaeologists, Sumeria is the name given the historical region of southern Mesopotamia which is now modern-day southern Iraq.

NOTE 2:  Sumerians also were among the first to brew beer so technically speaking, brewers in Europe and North America might be guilty of cultural appropriation as well.

Native American Indians also had a sport with varying rules that incorporated a hoop.  A hoop three inches to a foot in diameter was rolled along the ground and players tried to knock it over with spears or arrows.  Points were scored by how the hoop fell when it was struck down.

And in many cultures, circles – or hoops – have been a part of their identity outside of the concept of jewelry.   You see, the sacred hoop (sometimes referred to as the circle of life) is something that many cultures have at the center of their teachings.

But more importantly, the world is one great big hoop.  So are the other planets.  These planets travel in hoops be they round or oval or elliptical.  The wind whirls about in hoop shapes.  Water drains in hoop shapes.  The seasons form a hoop as they move from one to the other and return to the beginning of the cycle — a never-ending hoop the cycles endlessly through the years.

In the end, hoops belong to us all whether it’s a matter of spirituality or a matter of fashion, don’t you think?

Elyse Bruce

 

SOURCES:

COLLEGE SAYS IT RECEIVED THREATS AFTER EARRINGS DISPUTE
http://www.kctv5.com/story/34789674/college-says-it-has-received-threats-after-earrings-dispute

EARRINGS
http://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-accessories/earrings

NINE THINGS YOU MAY  NOT KNOW ABOUT THE ANCIENT SUMERIANS
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-ancient-sumerians

TREND IN FASHION: A HISTORY OF THE HOOP EARRING
http://www.finishtheoutfit.com/blog/hoop_earring/