A wrong, righted.

Several lifetimes ago and a couple of galaxies removed from here, I attend an Eastern preparatory school. In the vanilla Protestant Sunday services, we sang from a hymnal that had a number of inspirational verses printed in an appendix, and one of these was a poem that - although rememberd only partially - has remained with me for about 45 years.

A hungry man is at my door, what shall I do?
My fire is warm, my loaf is sweet, and I have you…
Sufficient for my needs, but Oh! The wind is cold.
A hungry man is at my door, and he is old.
And he is weary, waiting to be fed…

The poem goes on to describe inviting the traveler in, sharing the evening meal, and providing him with a warm cloak, and ends:

That done, and he upon his way along the street
I find my fire grown twice as warm, my loaf grown doubly sweet.

Ever since the advent of the internet, I have searched in vain for the author of that poem, but recently a reference surfaced, and I learned that it had been written by Grace Noll Crowell.

Further research led me to some fascinating biographical information about this woman, who during the 30's and 40's was known as one of the prominent poets of our nation; her verses of faith, hope and inspiration brightened the lives of thousands of people who labored under the weight of pain, sorrow, poverty or other burdens.

Only today I made the connection that "Because I Have Been Given Much", one of the most beloved songs in my present-day hymnbook, was one of her poems.

I have just ordered six of her books from Abebooks.com, and hope to find the complete poem referenced above in one of them. If not, I shall continue hunting.

During my search for information, however, I found that a previous Wikipedia article on Mrs. Crowell had been deleted "for lack of substantive content." Finding this a disgrace, I have recreated the article, and hope that this version meets with the approval of the editorial community.

Her poetry has lifted and inspired the lives of thousands. Behind the cut is the complete text of a chapter from William L. Stidger's The Human Side of Greatness, published by Harper Brothers in 1940 and now in the public domain. It's a long chapter, but very much worth reading.

( Songs Out Of Suffering )

I am honored to have made a small contribution to the encyclopedic knowledge of the world. Dale Carnegie having called her "one of the most beloved poets in America," Mrs. Crowell's life and poetry deserve to be re-elevated to the status she once enjoyed.

And now, being exhausted, I shall retire.

Writer's Block: Home Remedies

[Error: unknown template qotd]
Ah. Being teetotal, tragically, my favorite is no longer available to me. But here it is, anyway:

12 Oz. Hot Milk
1 Tablespoon Honey
1 Jigger Hennesy XO or Courvoisier Initiale Extra



What cold?

Mogg's Hqiz, folks...

Started making a batch of homemade ginger ale today. Discovered I needed a bigger pot. Yas, yas, it's the sabbath but my cup runneth over - literally. So I declare the ox in the mire, and sally forth to find a cheap sauce kettle.

Smith's Marketplace: Buy the whole set, or nothing. Minimum $159.00. No, thank you.
Note to Morons in Portland: I'm in Utah, and you have no idea what the locals want. People sometimes need just a pot to hiss in.

So, I run across the street to:

Williams-Sonoma: Holy Flapping Scrith, people! $475.00 a for hammered Ruffoni stockpot? I don't need something made with the same loving care as a samurai sword, for Mogg's sake. Stainless steel is stainless steel - it doesn't have to be folded and beaten 18,000 times and plated with platinum-iridium alloy. Yeesh!

Desperate and hoping against hope, I stumble into:

Albertson's: Kitchenmate 5½-quart Dutch Oven with lid. Stainless steel, 50% off, on sale for $9.95. God bless the outcasts! Just what I needed, and for the right price. So I feed the Chinese instead of the Italians... it will certainly last me my remaining lifetime, and cook some fine spaghetti sauce in the process. Thank you, Albertson's!

Now, to be fair: If I had more money than God, I would probably equip my kitchen with the finest stuff available. It feels nice, it looks nice, and it will not only last a lifetime, it's something you can will to your heirs. And Williams-Sonoma has fine stuff. But I don't have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.

Yet.

Maith thú, a Ghoogle!

Google D'fhógair díreach go bhfuil an teanga Gaeilge ar fáil anois mar chuid dá "seirbhís Google Translate".

That's what came out when I typed in, Google has just announced that the Irish language is now available as part of their "Google Translate" service.

It's lumpy and it's rough, but as the article says, it's "céim sa treo cheart" (a step in the right direction).

For those learning Irish, or for those who have learned it and put it out of their minds, this will be an invaluable service.

I ran this page through the box and came out with something that was pretty darn understandable - enough that I would have been able to know immediately what the page was about.

Next, I tried this page - not quite so technical, with more natural language. Once again, I had no problem understanding what the Commission for Regulation of Communications was all about.

Finally, I tried this page, which gave an overview of Old Irish literature. The machine had a harder time, because the language was natural and not technical, with more complex grammatical structures and less-common lexical items. But I still got a basic understanding of the page.

To its credit, the translation engine took fewer than 10 seconds in every case. And from Irish, no less.

I remember when I worked for a translation software company in the early 80's - we would charge thousands and thousands of dollars for a system that did this into one language only - and in some cases, not as well. The software underlying that system was astonishingly complex, based on all sorts of linguistic mumbo-jumbo, and still required heavy post-editing at the end stage. If my understanding is correct, today's engines operate on a more statistical model, and do just as well if not better in dozens of languages... for free.

That's what I call progress. It's definitely a slow go, but as we liked to say, "success is just around the corner." I wish I could be around in another 50 years to see what the next order of magnitude looks like!

[Edit: As an afterthought, I tried translating from English into Irish a well-known phrase, and got "Póg mo asal." Now why on earth would I want to kiss my donkey? ]