Tao’s 2 Cents

I was thinking about what I will tell future generations about what life was like during the time of oil. Whenever I think generally of oil my first thought is the opening credits to “The Beverly Hillbillies”. I found myself thinking of those nicknames, “black gold” and “Texas tea”.

While I was living in El Salvador I developed the tendency to think of the Spanish version of words and phrases. It was just mental practice of thinks I might want to say.

So when I translated “black gold” to “oro negro” I started actually thinking about the latin origins of “oro”. I’m sure that it is derived from the same word that we use for “ore”, which immediately brings to mind mining.

It seems like such a base word that can reflect any type of metal in English, would be used for a very basic kind of metal. If that were the case you would think that it would be for iron since it’s much more abundant and had such an immense impact on humanity, but the Spanish chose gold.

Of course, my thoughts turned to where I’d heard the most Spanish spoken. It made me think about the terrible mining operations that the conquistadors enslaved the indigenous people. I can only imagine how many times they heard the word “oro”. How many times it was the last word they heard?

In a way, we as humanity are now enslaved to “oro negro”. The only difference is that now the suffering is being heaped upon the planet, our future generations, and will soon spread to all of us within the very near future.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Civil Rights, Poverty, Culture, Torture, Apathy, Global Warming, Extinction, Oil, Environment. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.