The Growlery (November 2003) Essays by Michael Gilleland "Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." Charles Dickens, Bleak House, chapter VIII
The Balm of Fierabras EMail from Nigeria, Etc. Jury Duty Snowmobile Death Watch Most Recent Essays Archives

The Balm of Fierabras

In part I, chapter X of Cervantes' Don Quixote, the knight of the woeful countenance is suffering from a wound to his ear, and his squire offers some lint and ointment to dress the wound:

"All that might be well dispensed with," said Don Quixote, "if I had remembered to make a vial of the balm of Fierabras, for time and medicine are saved by one single drop."

"What vial and what balm is that?" said Sancho Panza.

"It is a balm," answered Don Quixote, "the receipt of which I have in my memory, with which one need have no fear of death, or dread dying of any wound."

British scientists recently proposed their own version of the balm of Fierabras, called the Polypill, a combination of six different drugs, for people over 55. The scientists claim that the PolyPill would reduce the number of deaths by heart attack and stroke by eighty percent, thereby saving 200,000 lives each year in the United Kingdom alone.

Charles Asbury Stephens (1844-1931), from my home state of Maine, was a prolific writer of children's stories for The Youth's Companion. He was also a doctor, and his medical writings include Long Life: The Occasional Review of an Investigation of the Intimate Causes of Old Age and Organic Death, with a Design to Their Alleviation and Removal (1896), Natural Salvation: The Message of Science, Outlining the First Principles of Immortal Life on the Earth (1906), and Immortal Life: How It Will Be Achieved (1920), based on research conducted at his laboratory in Norway, Maine. Stephens lived a long life, but ultimately was unable to cure himself of the disease of mortality.

The research goes on apace. Biochemist Cynthia Kenyon studies worms in hopes of discovering genes that regulate aging. She hopes that she'll still be alive at age 150. The Methusaleh Foundation sponsors the Methusaleh Mouse Prize, "designed to further the development of truly effective anti-aging interventions." The first winner, a mouse named GHR-KO 11C, lived 1819 days (the average life span of a mouse is about two years).

Far be it from me to belittle the heroic efforts of these scientists to prolong human life. Were it not for them, some people near and dear to me wouldn't be alive today. But the quest for some human invention to achieve everlasting life is a will-o'-the-wisp. The ancient Greeks thought the attempt was not only foolish and doomed to failure, but also ill-advised. Euripides, in his play The Suppliants (lines 1109-1111, tr. E.P. Coleridge), almost seems to be prophesying about the scientists of our day when he says, "Them too I hate, whoso desire to lengthen out the span of life, seeking to turn the tide of death aside by philtres, drugs, and magic spells." The elegaic poet Callinus (tr. J.M. Edmonds) wrote: "By no means may a man escape death, nay not if he come of immortal lineage. Oftentime, it may be, he returneth safe from the conflict of battle and the thud of spears, and the doom of death cometh upon him at home." The Greeks doubted whether everlasting life would be an unmixed blessing even if it were possible, and expressed these doubts in the myth of Tithonus, who had eternal life but not eternal youth. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (lines 218-238, tr. Hugh G. Evelyn White) describes his fate:

So also golden-throned Eos rapt away Tithonus who was of your race and like the deathless gods. So she went to ask the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that he should be deathless and live eternally; and Zeus bowed his head to her prayer and fulfilled her desire. Too simple was queenly Eos; she thought not in her heart to ask youth for him and to strip him of the slough of deadly age. So while he enjoyed the sweet flower of life he lived rapturously with golden-throned Eos, the early-born, by the streams of Ocean, at the ends of the earth; but when the first grey hairs began to ripple from his comely head and noble chin, queenly Eos kept away from his bed, though she cherished him in her house and gave him rich clothing. But when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs.

Last Sunday, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls), was a forceful reminder of the inevitability of death and the hope of resurrection. The story of Lazarus from John's Gospel (chapter 11) was read, which contains this conversation between Jesus and Lazarus' sister Martha (verses 23-27):

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

At Sunday Mass the necrology was also read, the list of the faithful departed who were buried from my parish during the last year. One of the departed was the father of one of my daughter's schoolmates. The entire seventh grade attended his funeral Mass earlier this fall. I remembered my own list of the faithful departed -- my beloved grandparents, my favorite great-aunts, and especially my father. In the choir loft, there were candles lit for departed choir members, along with photographs.

During Mass the choir sang the Dona eis requiem (Grant them rest) from John Rutter's Requiem, with its exquisite soprano solo, and also chanted the haunting melody

In paradisum deducant te angeli, in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

May angels bring you to paradise, at your arrival may martyrs welcome you and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem May the choir of angels welcome you, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have eternal rest.

We have no idea what Heaven will be like. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9), but that doesn't stop people from imagining. Saint Brigid's vision of Heaven is as good as any I've seen:

I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.
I would like full vessels of charity.
I would like rich treasures of mercy.
I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.
I would like Jesus to be present.
I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts.
....
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.

Email from Nigeria, Etc.

I usually don't respond to scam emails from Nigeria, but this one was so inept I had to reply:

Dear Friend,

I am Barrister Martins Albert, a solicitor at law and a 
partner at Lord Ahmed Chambers. I am the attorney 
to Mr. Shaline Adam, an expatriate, who used to work
with Shell Development Company in Nigeria.

On the 31st of October 1999, my Client, his wife, Sarah
and their children were involved in a plane crash
(EGYPTIAN AIRLINE 990) ....

Shaline Adam did indeed die on that tragic flight, but "Martins Albert" didn't do his homework, as my reply indicates:

Dear Martins Albert, Esq:

I'm confused. The Shaline Adam who died on Egypt
Airline 990 was a woman, and her husband's name
was Salah. Yet you say that Shaline Adam was a 
man, whose wife's name was Sarah. Please explain
this discrepancy.

Best wishes,
Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.  

The follow-up email from "Martins Albert":

Dear Father,

I am sorry about the mix-up. I was actually referring
to the woman Mrs. Shaline Adam as my client, and the 
husband's name Salah was mis-typed by my secretary. 
I thank you for your swift response and hope to start the
transaction with you as soon as you acknowledge the receipt
of this mail.

Regards and God bless you.

Mr. M. Albert

And finally:

Dear Father Gassalasca,
 
This is to inquire if you have received my last email and why
you have not responded. Please, do as soon as possible. Time 
is not on our side.
 
Mr. Albert

I confess that the sonorous name Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., which I used as a pseudonym, isn't original with me. What do the names Stumpo Gaker, Apuleius M. Gokul, Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., and Romach Pute have in common? They are the names of "eminent poets" quoted by Ambrose Bierce in his Devil's Dictionary. Of course, no such poets ever lived. Their names and their verses are inventions of Bierce's fertile imagination.

The budding writer today has the benefit of a plethora of software tools to generate names. The list includes Random Name Generator, which uses US Census data, the Louis Farrakhan African Name Generator, the Rock Star Name Generator, the Band Name Generator, among many others.

But I don't know of any tool clever or witty enough to think up names as quirky as those invented by Ambrose Bierce. Some of his techniques are susceptible to analysis, though, and a few patterns emerge.

One obvious mechanism is to take a common surname, such as Smith, and add an outlandish or unusual first name, like Giacomo, Juan, Polydore, Sigismund, or Stromboli. All of these Smiths appear in Bierce's pantheon of poets. The same technique yields Israfel Browne, Farquharson Harris, Halcyon Jones, Opoline Jones, and Agamemnon Melancthon Peters.

Alliteration plays a part in some of Bierce's made-up names: Henry Haukhorn, Hannibal Hunsiker, Jebel Jocordy, Mumfrey Mappel, Mowbray Myles, and Porfer Poog, for example.

Bierce seems to favor certain letters and combinations, such as k and double o: Oogum Bem, Oglum P. Boomp, John Boop, Jum Coople, Booley Fito, Bootle P. Gish, Orrin Goof, Averil Joop, Naramy Oof, Jared Oopf, Porfer Poog, and Joel Spate Woop all sport double o, and k is much more prominent than one would expect from its frequency in English (there's only one k in Scrabble), showing up in Junker Barlow, Joel Frad Bink, B. Percival Dike, Arion Spurl Doke, Apperton Duke, Pobeter Dunk, Stumpo Gaker, Apuleius M. Gokul, Joel Huck, Gat Huckle, Hannibal Hunsiker, Aramis Jukes, John Lukkus, Atka Mip, Jupiter Muke, Gargo Repsky, Lavatar Shunk, Worgum Slupsky, Dudley Spink, Arbely C. Strunk, Sukker Uffro, and Jorrock Wormley.

A few of Bierce's creations are obvious contortions of familiar literary names and titles, such as Jorace (Horace), Judibras (Hudibras), Alexander Poke (Alexander Pope), and Bella Peller Silcox (Ella Wheeler Wilcox).

Then there are those humorous names which defy easy categorization: Armit Huff Bettle, Golgo Brone, Hassan Brubuddy, Conmore Apel Brune, Salder Bupp, Purzil Crofe, Xamba Q. Dar, Ambat Delaso, Bissel Gip, Politian Greame, Richard Gwow, Gassalasca Jape, Barson Maith, Orm Pludge, Bogul S. Purvy, Romach Pute, Gopete Sherany, Barney Stims, Venable Strigg, Offenbach Stutz, Gorton Swope, Fernando Tapple, Jogo Tyree, Barlow S. Vode, Fogarty Weffing, Jex Wopley, Marley Wottel, and John William Yope.

There are even a few names which don't seem all that funny. Maybe some jokes lurk in names like W. J. Candleton, Thompson Johnson, and Quincy Giles, but they're too subtle for me to grasp.

The writers of Nigerian scam emails should take a page from Bierce's book. Martins Albert is a humdrum name for a barrister, but I might sit up and take notice if received an email from Bootle P. Gish, Esq.

Jury Duty

By nature, I'm not exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness. If I ruled the world, I would exact harsh but condign punishment for certain crimes. Under my tyrannical regime, for example, those who permit their dogs to foul the footpath without cleaning up after them would be forced to remove the mess with their own bare hands. The punishment for those who discard cigarette butts on the sidewalk would be to pick them up, chew them, and swallow them. And so on.

Fortunately, I don't rule the world. In this corner of the universe, at least, we're ruled by a "government of laws, and not of men." One of these laws is the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

I recently served on a jury for a criminal case of second degree assault. It was an unpleasant and inconvenient experience (we were sequestered over night during deliberations), yet at the same time a sobering and enlightening and encouraging one. My fellow jurors (most of them, anyway) impressed me by their good sense, their ability to express themselves clearly and forcefully and even eloquently, their willingness to consider opposing views, and their fairness. We eventually found the defendant not guilty.

Serious situations have their humorous moments, and this trial by jury was no exception. One of the witnesses for the prosecution was chewing a wad of gum on the stand, which made her testimony so hard to understand that she was finally forced to remove the gum. There's a similar scene involving Curly in the Three Stooges' Disorder in the Court.

The jury system, like all our hallowed institutions, has come under criticism lately, for example by Richard Dawkins in his essay Three herring gull chicks . . . the reason juries don't work, published in The Observer (London), November 16, 1997. Of course, such attacks are nothing new. One of the oldest attacks on juries is Aristophanes' play Wasps, although Aristophanes does not so much criticize the institution itself as its manipulation by spellbinding orators and crooked politicians. Dawkins' statement "Think how juries bring out the worst in histrionic, gallery-playing lawyers" echoes Aristophanes. While recognizing the imperfections and fallibility of juries (look what happened to Socrates), I, for one, am thankful that I live in a country where the Sixth Amendment is the law of the land. As is the case with most imperfect democratic institutions, the remedies proposed by jury reformers are often worse than the disease.

James Piereson recently wrote an erudite article tracing the history of the phrase "under God," introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance by Congress in 1954. It occurs in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and Lincoln probably got it from Parson Weems' biography of George Washington.

I wish that someone would similarly trace the history of the phrase "a government of laws, and not of men." John Adams (under the pseudonym Novanglus) used the phrase in a newspaper article (Boston Gazette, March 6, 1775), but he attributed the idea to Aristotle, Livy, and James Harrington. The antithesis "laws versus men" occurs in Aristotle's Politics (3.16.1287a, tr. Benjamin Jowett), where the philosopher is discussing rule by one man (monarchy):

Therefore he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire.

Snowmobile Death Watch

People will bet on anything, and bookies will oblige them. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is taking online bets on who will succeed the ailing Pope John Paul II, even though Pope Gregory XIV banned bets of this sort back in 1591.

Snowflakes are falling outside my window today, in the first snowfall of the season. If I were a betting man, I might place a wager on snowmobile deaths in Minnesota, for example when the first one will occur this winter and how many there will be. Actuaries could probably calculate the anticipated number of deaths based on the projected snow cover (there weren't many snowmobile fatalities in 2002-2003, a mild winter here) and the number of snowmobile registrations.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), in his poem Hurt Hawks, wrote the shocking words "I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk." A possible plot for novelist John Sanford's Prey series might involve a deranged, Jeffers-inspired environmentalist, on snowshoes with a bow and arrow, stalking snowmobilers, except that some snowmobile enthusiasts are already doing a pretty good job of killing themselves without any help, by smashing into trees at 90 miles an hour and driving over thin ice, often under the influence of alcohol.

There's a lot of interesting information on the World Wide Web about snowmobile accidents. In the Middle West, where I live, some state departments of natural resources have recently started compiling annual snowmobile accident and fatality reports, e.g. Minnesota (2001-2002), Wisconsin (summaries 2001-2002, 2002-2003; reports 2000-2001, 2001-2002), and Michigan. These reports are fascinating reading for the geeky statistician, replete with graphs and tables. But even if statistics make you yawn, there are some riveting descriptions, especially in the Wisconsin summaries, which were evidently written by a civil servant with a flair for the dramatic. The Minnesota DNR also has a good summary table of Snowmobile certification, registration & accident statistics 1967-present.

It's possible to extract additional information by submitting queries to on-line databases. Here are some numbers I got on snowmobile riders admitted to hospitals (1998-2002), from the Minnesota Injury Data Access System's (MIDAS) Hospital Inpatient/Outpatient Discharge Billing Data (UB-92):

There is useful information outside of government data, but partisan reports (as always) need to be read with a dose of skepticism. The Bluewater Network's Snowmobile Position Paper (April 2002) emphasizes the adverse environmental effects of snowmobiles. Louise A. Sherren of the Alberta Snowmobile Association is the author of a study entitled Snowmobiling Today (March 14, 2002), which stresses the sport's positive economic impact, while downplaying environmental concerns. I also recommend the America Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement on Snowmobiling Hazards (RE0006) published in Pediatrics 106.5 (Nov. 2000) 1142-1144.