The Charlotte News
Friday, February 27, 1942
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: Nothing in particular of substance on the page today cries out for lengthy comment, at least nothing on which we have not recently commented at some length, and so we shall let you con it for yourself.
We suppose we could contrast Raymond Clapper's need for speed admonition anent the defense industry with that of The News editorial a couple of days ago on that same need for speed on the highways being "The Killer", equal in a year's time to half a division of men at war, and find in it some sort of poetic asymmetry. Or, given that both the automobile and warfare need oil to get going, and as an object to continue going, we might even find darkly poetic concordance in the pieces. And, then, we might comment on the fact that the President's fireside chat Monday night told the nation that 2,340 had in fact died at Pearl Harbor, (a figure later to be revised to 2,390 or perhaps simply not including the civilians killed), not the several thousand as some among the Axis had tried to claim, and from the actual figure remind again of the August 18 Herblock re the increase in deaths by automobile in the first half of 1941 over those of the first half of 1940, finding again that mysteriously intriguing concord.
Instead, we shall be content to comment on the little piece from Charleston, wondering about the eschatological attributes, antecedent to Nirvana, of the nom de plume offered the pileated woodpecker, and, no doubt, sub silentio, whether such connotes some impiety by imputing to the woodcock some lordly guise, such as "good-god", surely a Commandment defiler in itself. We find ourselves wondering at "Old Kate", a bit of a puzzler as to origin. "African Queen" had not been released and so we could not find the derivation there. "Bringing Up Baby" was about a chimpanzee, not a Log-cock, and so that appears out as well. Finally, the OED informs that Kate is a name used sometimes to denote finches, especially the brambling finch, the hawfinch, and the goldfinch. That, of course, brings to mind:
The ousel cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill,--
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay;--
All of which together at once suggests to us that, not Dr. Naismith, but the woodpecker invented the game of basketball.
Yet, we still don't understand why they call it "Old Kate", the woodcock that is.
Framed Edition
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