ROME — A felony amount of methamphetamine was found hidden in a secret compartment inside a dictionary during a search in Rome, according to the Rome Police Department.
Police said a vehicle was stopped in the 400 block of E. Bloomfield St. around 3 p.m. April 27 and two backpacks were found inside. The driver, who was charged with several vehicle violations, claimed one of the backpacks, police said. The passenger, 35-year-old Shawn E. Westcott, of Rome, denied ownership of the second backpack, police said.
The second backpack was found between Westcott's legs and was taken back to the police station to be searched, authorities stated.
Several items were found inside the backpack, including a BB gun and a throwing ax, police said. Officers also found a dictionary with a secret compartment, with even more items hidden inside, police stated.
Among the items found in the dictionary compartment was a quantity of meth, police said.
Westcott was located two days later and was taken into custody on one count of felony second-degree possession of a controlled substance, police said. He is scheduled to appear in Rome City Court.
Some of the most important parts of Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, by Nobel prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, are the scenes where the main character and her best friend busy themselves translating the words of William Blake.
Janina and Dizzy, both Polish, consider fragments of the original poems and reflect on the translation: they discuss in depth the language to be used, what the author meant, and what is really the most important for poetry in translation: trueness or intent; staying as close as possible to the original text, or changing whatever is necessary to pass on the meaning the original was trying to convey.
An interesting fact is that Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, the novel, has taken its title from one of Blake’s poems, Proverbs Of Hell.
As I read the book – which is filled with short transcripts of Blake’s poetry – I too wondered how I would translate those bits and pieces it into my own native language, Portuguese. There are so many variants in a language that allow for legitimate translations of the same text, and there is always the fear that a better, more accurate translation is just around the corner.
If we turn to Blake and to his Proverbs Of Hell, a part in the poem explains this struggle: “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” Anyone who has ever had to examine a text for school can attest to the unfairness of being marked a wrong answer just because one’s examination differs from that of the textbook – or the professor.
In poetry, especially, is it fair to assume the author’s intention, especially when they leave space for an open interpretation? Who is to say my personal interpretation of a piece of literature is wrong, really, when each single reader brings with them a metaphorical suitcase, filled with life experiences which shape the way they perceive things?
One of Portugal’s most famous writers is perhaps Fernando Pessoa. He is known for his philosophical divagations in volumes such as The Book Of Disquiet, and for his poems. Pessoa was a curious character, a prolific writer, who had several heteronyms and molded words at will.
I am a big fan of the Fado music genre, and many of Pessoa’s poems were turned into songs; a few years ago, on vacation in Portugal, I ended up buying a collection of Fados entirely comprised of the words of Pessoa. I have absolutely no complaints about the music itself, but the little booklet it came with had all of the poetry sung in the album both in Portuguese and in English, and I swear I almost collapsed when I looked at the translations.
This is not the only time I’ve seen translations of poetry into my native language which absolutely botch the original. There is always, no exception, a thing or two I would tweak, either because I think it sounds better, or because I believe it encapsulates the idea of the poem, or the peculiar words chosen by the poet, better. And yet, often I am also surprised: I will stumble upon a translation, recognise I would not have translated it with those words, but agree that those words are, in fact, much more fitting of the poem.
It is difficult to define how much you lose or get from a translation. The ideal, of course, would be to speak all of the languages of the world and to not have to translate a thing. Because language isn’t merely knowledge, it is a feeling.
Native writers may not know why grammar works the way it does, but most of the time they will know to tell you that this doesn’t sound right, and that that does.
Managing to create beauty, and to encapsulate feeling, into words is one of the most difficult things to do. Keeping that beauty and feeling in translation might be impossible, which brings us again to the case of being truer to the intent of the original than to the words used, and where to draw a line.
Personally, I think Portuguese is one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and that no English translation of any poem can come close to holding in itself the beauty of the original. But maybe this is just sentiment talking, my own understanding and feeling – always the feeling – of the language I know best, the language that raised me and which I will always know most deeply.
Pessoa said: “My homeland is the Portuguese language,” and as an immigrant, I feel that in my bones. After ten years abroad, I do not feel like I belong to Portugal per se, but I also know I will never experience a culture the way I do the one I grew up immersed in. But the Portuguese language, that belongs to me in ways my homeland may never belong again.
I can translate one of my favourite Portuguese poems into English and feel like I did a good job. But I will still be wishing you could experience my language the way I do. Which, unfortunately, is not possible (unless you know and speak the language).
Then, of course, there is the issue of puns and made up words. PURgatory and PurGATOrio (where do cats expiate their sins before going to heaven?) will work for natives of both languages, but when someone (like author Mia Couto) makes a mash of the words bless (benção) and dream (sonho) to form abensonhadas – which makes perfect sense in Portuguese – how do you translate that and still keep both words, and the original intent and meaning? Well, good thing I am not a translator, or you would probably get dressed or bleam, which is gibberish.
Still, I think translations are always a valiant effort for sharing stories and for promoting wider accessibility, which brings us to another important issue within the subject of translations: who should translate what.
At Biden’s inauguration ceremony, Amanda Gorman took the stage by storm. Her poem, The Hill We Climb, was made into a book and translated worldwide. In the Netherlands, the translation work was gifted to writer and poet Marijke Lucas Rijnveld.
As much as Rijnveld is a brilliant writer (having won the International Booker Prize for his debut novel Discomfort Of Evening), he is neither a translator — or versed in English, as it was apparent at the Booker’s award ceremony — nor is he a person of colour. The publisher’s choice, it seems, was made merely out of popularity, and out of the fact that several publishers continue to grant certain rewards to the same popular – and usually white – authors over and over again, either that is the best fit or not.
Of course, the conversation started: why was Rijnveld given this honour when there are so many Black translators better suited for it and struggling to find a job? And how much of the core of the poem will Rijnveld really be able to translate properly, being that his own experience with race and culture differs so much from that of Gorman?
In the end, because these questions arose (something that would probably not have happened a decade ago) the translation ended up going to Zaïre Krieger.
This does not mean nothing is lost in translation, for such is the risk of trying to convey a language. But when you know the language in translation and the experience being translated into on a deeper level, a piece of poetry might still work for readers the way the original works for native speakers: it may touch the same heart strings, and invoke the same feelings.
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In 2011, Spaniard Natalia Diez was in Miami, FL where she had moved, and it was here that she first set foot in a CrossFit gym.
“I saw some guys doing butterfly pull-ups,” said Diez, who is now Spain’s CrossFit country manager. “And I remember doing it for the first time and being like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’”
But the 40-year-old Diez was hooked, and within five months she had completed her CrossFit Level 1 certificate. Diez said this was the beginning of what has become a life-long love affair with the sport.
“From there I was basically obsessed with CrossFit and I stayed in the US for about a year and took some coaching courses, some gymnastics courses because I wanted to know everything I could about CrossFit. I was looking for something and I found it.”
Diez then moved back to Spain, but at that point there were only four boxes in the entire country. So she did what any highly motivated person would do, and started building CrossFit in her country from the ground up. She was based out of Madrid and within a few years she was working full-time as a coach, leaving her job managing a Gold’s Gym.
By 2016 she was officially working with CrossFit, getting her coveted “red shirt”, coaching and teaching Level 1 and 2 courses. Her resume with CrossFit includes everything from judging and coaching to teaching and of course, competing.
In August of 2019, Diez helped CrossFit Front Garden come to fruition, and it became the first affiliate located within an oncology unit in a hospital (which she still runs to this day). Through this journey, she has seen CrossFit in Spain go from nowhere, to an established methodology which just broke 600 affiliates this month and has already added 41 in 2022 alone.
“The rate of growth (of CrossFit) in Spain has been crazy in the last nine months,” said Diez, who now lives in Palma, a city on the Spanish island of Mallorca.”We are having from nine to 11 affiliates open every month.”
“People outside of CrossFit are realizing that we take care of people, and I think that goes a long way when someone first comes into a box.”
Diez said this growth comes down to a number of factors, and at the foundation is making sure every single affiliate in Spain feels as if they have the support of CrossFit. She said this encompasses everything from birthday calls to regular training, for free of course.
“We’re working on educating them every month on something new, we cover training education, business education. So this week for example we worked on conflict resolution within the box, so not just with clients but conflicts within the team. How to proceed with that from the legal to personal part.”
CrossFit’s trajectory in Europe seems to have been supercharged coming out of the pandemic. France now has the second most number of boxes in the world, behind only the US, and Ollie Mansbridge, the country manager for the UK, said they are seeing growth all the way from London to Scandinavia.
Europe’s emergence from the pandemic has been nearly as swift as the US, as vaccine and travel restrictions have dropped almost as quickly as they were administered. Polls are showing people are craving human interaction again, as well as a renewed sense and purpose around fitness as a lifestyle and a means for staying healthy.
Diez said CrossFit plays perfectly into this as it combines working out with community in a setting where people feel challenged but not intimidated. She said one demographic switch she has seen coming out of the pandemic is a lot of people coming to fitness for the first time in their lives, in their 30s and 40s, with no sports or athletic backgrounds. She said this also applies to people in smaller towns where fitness hasn’t always necessarily been a priority.
“People are realizing outside of CrossFit that we take care of people, and I think that goes a long way when someone first comes into a box … and it’s really crazy because if you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said the opposite, people were trying to open affiliates in big cities, but now we are seeing affiliates open in small towns and do really well right away.”
Of course, Diez said the biggest hurdle when it comes to Spain’s CrossFit future is a simple, but incredibly complex one.
“Only about 20 percent of the population in Spain can speak English, and only about 20 percent of that say they read English…this is the hurdle we face everyday.”
“I’ve been translating for a long time and I’m always trying to fight for this. So think about when CrossFit shares something interesting with the world, but you don’t understand it because of the language barrier.”
Diez said training people to translate is a difficult task as well because CrossFit is a highly technical sport that has a lot of minutia and details that need to be exact. And of course, if people can’t read or even listen to English at a certain capacity, CrossFit’s message only gets to them through Diez and her team of translators.
“We translate as much as we can, but only about 20 percent of the population here in Spain can speak English, and only about 20 percent of that say they read English. Which means there are not a lot of people here who understand English. And so this is the hurdle we face everyday.”
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A California man was recently arrested for threatening to murder and bomb employees at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary over the reference book’s definition of “girl” and “woman.”
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, 34-year-old Jeremy David Hanson of Rossmoor, California, sent a series of threats to the dictionary company from Oct. 2 to Oct. 8, 2021.
The messages, sent through the company’s website and in the comments section on its webpages, repeated disturbing violent threats, such as saying employees should be “hunted down and shot,” that the office should be “bombed,” and used derogatory slurs against LGBTQ people.
Law enforcement authorities later identified the user who had made the threats as Hanson. As a result of the threats, Merriam-Webster closed its offices in Springfield, Massachusetts, and New York City for approximately five business days.
While the specific reasons for Hanson becoming so enraged aren’t exactly clear, he generally took issue with more “transgender-friendly” definitions of “female” and woman” in the dictionary. On Oct. 2, 2021, Hanson, using the handle @anonYmous, allegedly wrote, “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Hanson also allegedly sent a threatening message via the website’s “Contact Us” page: “You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive.”
“Jeremy Hanson is accused of making hate-fueled threats of violence that crossed a line,” Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division Joseph R. Bonavolonta said in a statement published by the United States Attorney’s Office on April 22. “Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but repeatedly threatening to kill people, as has been alleged, takes it to a new level. We are always going to pursue individuals who try to intimidate and isolate members of our community by inciting violent, hateful acts.”
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Currently, Hanson is facing a charge of “interstate transmission of communications to injure the person of another,” which could lead to a prison sentence of up to 5 years and a $250,000 fine.
But he could soon face additional charges, as “the investigation identified numerous related threats, including to the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O’ Lakes, Hasbro, Inc., IGN Entertainment, the President of the University of North Texas, two professors at Loyola Marymount University and a New York City rabbi,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
These threats from Hanson, while shocking and unsettling, are hardly the isolated outbursts of an hateful individual. With the recent string of anti-LGBTQ and anti-transgender legislation advancing through many state governments across the country, the political climate has created an atmosphere where anti-trans animus is not only more common, but even condoned in some circles.
However, the law enforcement officials who assisted in the arrest of Hanson seem dedicated to quelling such hateful violence.
“Hate-filled threats and intimidations have no place in our society,” United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said in the April 22 statement. “My office and our law enforcement partners will not tolerate threats against members of our communities, no matter what corner of the internet they’re sent from.”
Google Translate now has new Material You-themed widgets on Android.
The "Saved Translation" widget provides quick access to translations you've recently completed.
Another widget gives you access to quick actions such as voice translation, conversation mode, and camera-based translations.
The Google Translate app on Android received a nifty Material You facelift late last year, giving it a more modern look and an interactive design, but its widget was left out in the cold. That changes now with a pair of new Material You-themed widgets for the app.
Google announced the new update on Twitter, where it showed off what the new home screen widgets look like. They provide faster ways to interact with the service's various features without having to open the app first, saving users a few taps.
The "Translate Quick Actions" widget features voice, conversation, transcription, and camera modes. Meanwhile, the "Save Translation" shortcut displays your recent translations in one place.
Furthermore, you can resize the widgets. Their options change dynamically as well, depending on their size. For example, the Translate Quick Actions widget displays all four actions when expanded. The other shortcut shows the current language pairing at the top of the screen, with a clipboard shortcut on the right side.
Prior to the update, the widget was offered only as a bare-bones 1x1 shortcut that you could add to your home screen to access quick actions like the camera and conversation mode.
The new widgets also loosely match the dominant hues of your wallpaper thanks to the dynamic color theming in Android 12.
Google Translate's new widgets on Android with Material You design language(Image credit: Google)
It's the latest widget to get a makeover after years of Google's cold shoulder toward home screen shortcuts. The search giant previously rolled out similar treatments to the Android widgets of Google Maps and Gmail, among others.
The latest visual and functional changes to Translate's widget should make it a lot more useful and interactive, though they don't seem to be widely available with the latest version of the app.
It's possible that the new widgets will make their way to many of the best Android phones as part of a future release on the Play Store, but a server-side update is also a possibility. It will, however, most likely require Android 12 or later.
Latino parents in the ELPASO Voz-Lafayette leadership group are asking the Boulder Valley School District to better fund translation services so more special education documents can be translated into a family’s native language.
Now, the district provides either written or oral translations, as requested, of special education documents. While a written translation of a student’s final Individualized Education Program, or IEP, plan is provided, the draft version that’s given to families prior to the formal meeting to decide on services is translated orally.
Ten parents from the Lafayette group, which has been working with the school district for a couple of years on issues about special education, spoke at this week’s Boulder Valley school board meeting.
“We want and deserve changes in district policies so that there is equality for all in our community,” Yadira Silva, who has two children at Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, said through a translator.
The Lafayette parents said they want all documents and written communication — including newsletters, messages and emails — provided in the parent or guardian’s native language. They also want the district to provide non-native English-speaking families with professional interpreters at all special education meetings.
District officials said they used feedback from ELPASO Voz and the district’s Latino Parent Advisory Council in improving the translation and interpretation department. The department created districtwide interpretation request and scheduling systems last school year, then opened up written translation requests to all schools this year. The department also provides translations for all district-level newsletters and messages.
“A lot of what the parents are asking for is part of what we’re doing,” said Boulder Valley spokesman Randy Barber. “We want our Spanish-speaking parents to have the information they need so they can participate fully. We want the families to know that we hear them.”
Special education Executive Director Michelle Brenner said she’s working with Translation and Interpretation Services Manager Don McGinnis on a timeline of when the district can start providing written translations of the draft version of IEPs.
“Ensuring that our families have what they need to feel informed and invested in the IEP process is very important to us,” Brenner said.
McGinnis said professional interpreters are provided by request at special education meetings, as well as at other individual meetings with teachers. His department has worked this school year to educate teachers about the services available, he said, as well as provide best practices for hosting meetings that include interpretation.
“Anyone in the district can tell us they need an interpreter, and it will happen,” he said. “We want to make sure those supports are there.”
Along with improved translation services, the parent group is asking the district to require that families receive a draft copy of the IEP at least five days before a formal meeting. Now, that’s a district expectation, but not a requirement.
Tangi Lancaster, the community organizer for the group, said native Spanish-speaking parents have reported not being given a draft copy of the IEP — that’s written in English — until during the formal IEP meeting.
Without information in advance in their native language, she said, parents can’t take an active, informed role as part of their child’s special education team.
“Using the words ‘expectation’ and ‘recommendation’ leave the door open to personal discretion and discrimination of the student’s (special education) case worker or whichever district staff member is sending the draft IEP,” she wrote in an email.
At the school board meeting, parents shared stories of frustrations in trying to navigate the special education system.
Maria Guadalupe Cardoza talked about being asked to pick up her son, who receives special education services, from his elementary school after he was suspended after an incident in 2018.
She said she heard from her son that he was treated badly at the school, but couldn’t get more information from the special education department. She also received a call from social services about the incident, she said.
She added that receiving special education documents in English meant she didn’t have information about her son’s goals and achievements or what strategies to use at home to support him.
“There are many difficulties, and I’m very frustrated,” she said through an interpreter.
Rini Nieves, a Monarch High School parent, said the need to address the inequities created by limited translation services is urgent.
“It is an emergency to address the fact that parents continue to receive information from the school district that they do not understand,” she said through a translator.
