Beyond The Ken

I love words. I'm good at the English ones. I'm getting better at the Spanish ones. I know a bit of Mandarin, as in "Nǐ hǎo ma" or "hello". I think. I have a friend of mine on the train who is trying to teach me Italian. Every morning when I catch the 6:17AM to Penn Station from Lindenhurst, there she is greeting all of her train friends --including me -- with a cheerful "Buon giorno!" I even know a bit of Thai -- that land where almost everyone's name has a "porn" suffix, as in Phanporn. (Man that always makes me snicker in humor.) But Thailand is one of the most beautiful lands I've ever laid eyes on, so it always gives me great pleasure when I can join my palms, bow, and greet a local with a sawat-dee-kaa (for female) or a sawat-dee-khrab (for males ...this one also makes me snicker because it sounds like "crap" when you hear it).

Lately, though, one word has been tripping me up time and again. It's the word ken. This also happens to be the name of someone for whom I reserve no cheer, which may explain why I keep lacerating my linguistic knees and elbows every time that word comes to mind. But he's not the topic of this post. Still there's the tripping.


So, I dusted myself off bandaged the wound, and went out to get myself a definition. Here's what I found from dictionary.com:


ken /kɛn/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ken] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, kenned or kent, ken·ning. –noun

1.	knowledge, understanding, or cognizance; mental perception: an idea beyond one's ken.

2.	range of sight or vision.

–verb (used with object)

3.	Chiefly Scot. a. to know, have knowledge of or about, or be acquainted with (a person or thing). b. to understand or perceive (an idea or situation).

4.	Scots Law. to acknowledge as heir; recognize by a judicial act.

5.	Archaic. to see; descry; recognize.

6.	British Dialect Archaic. a. to declare, acknowledge, or confess (something). b. to teach, direct, or guide (someone).

–verb (used without object)

7.	British Dialect. a. to have knowledge of something. b. to understand.

Once I read this, it hit me. There is just so much shit I don't understand about this world. Language aside, there are some concepts that simply escape me. To use ken in a sentence, there are some things in this world, that are beyond my ken.

Religion is one of them. I was once a practicing Catholic, so I think I know a thing or two about faith and believing and living for an afterlife in heaven. Conceptually, I get what Catholicism is all about, but even as a Catholic it never failed to stump me, why so many Catholics get hot and bothered by people who don't believe the same way. Take for example this story in Long Island Newsday in which a local retired fireworks company executive living in Patchogue, NY has made it his business to fight the "secularization" of Christmas. To wit, "We are bringing Christmas back to Long Island," says M. Philip Butler. I ask, aren't there better things to do with one's time in retirement than worry about the fate of a holiday co-opted from the Druids? Like many "downtowns" across the U.S., Patchogue's is hurting, and all this wingnut can think of is how his dear holiday was stolen. Way above my ken.

Consumer debt is another. When I was a kid, my parents were quite "frugal" with household finances. As the parents of seven, hungry growing kids stuffed into three-bedroom Manhattan housing project apartment, I could see now why my mother would tell me, "Oh, it's just a small hole. Keep wearing them," when I showed her how worn the bottom of my Pro-Keds were. They managed quite nicely because they based their purchases on need. Moreover, they did what few people do these days, they prioritized those needs so that a pair of new sneakers didn't keep us from going hungry. Let's face it folks. We are not any richer than our parents were in the 1970s, 1960s or 1950s. In fact, we're probably poorer now when you consider how devalued the dollar has become. What I don't understand is that if we are sooo fucking poor, why do we accept being chastised and negatively "scored" by credit rating agencies for not carrying some kind of debt; as if paying cash for something were some form of scarlet letter. As more and more people default on jumbo mortgages they had no business taking in the first place, and with the holiday, "Christmas" season approaching, it perplexes me how these Visa commercials are still on the air. Is carrying mounds of unaffordable debt just to move quickly through a convenience store the apogee of out existence? I don't get it. I have no ken for this one.

Finally, there's this gem from the sands of Saudi Arabia, where the authorities there jailed and whipped a 19-year old woman for being a rape victim -- you can read about it here. When she and her lawyer complained about the injustice of the charge and sentence, the Saudi courts "upped" the sentence. This woman was gang-raped by seven men, and because she broke some Islamic law about hanging out with men not her brother or husband, she gets tossed into the klink, too. The worst part in all this is our own government's reaction in which they "expressed astonishment" though not directly to the Saudi government. And don't kid yourself into thinking that a Democratic President would react in the same way. Sure, Hillary Clinton talks a good game in debates and on the campaign trail, but if she's elected President, her administration will be sucking at the Saudi oil teat just like every other one has since the 1950s. What perplexes me is not so much the inhumanity and barbarity of the sentence, but the hubris of the Saudi government to defend the actions of their courts. I know it's a "cultural" thing in Saudi Arabia, but so is female genital circumcision in parts of Africa. Calling it a tenet of culture does not make it right. Yet, it persists. This is so beyond the ken for me.

There is so much more in this world that I simply do not understand. Someday, I'll write about them here. For now, I suppose I should just shut the fuck up and listen more to what people are trying to tell me -- at home, at work, or wherever I may find myself . But there's this nagging little thing inside me called a conscience and sometimes it needs to speak up before it gets kenned by subjective insights. Sometimes, I have this need to call it like I see it. Sometimes, I need to say, "Ken, you're full of khrab."

Wǎnshàng hǎo my friends. Buona sera!