"Some people call these ‘folk songs.' Well, all the songs that I’ve heard in my life was folk songs. I’ve never heard horses sing none of them yet!"

Said Big Bill Broonzy, in 1956, as he was performing "This Train (Bound for Glory)" alongside Pete Seeger to an audience of college students.

Quoted in "Black Folk Musicians Are Reclaiming the Genre/In returning to a songbook that is decades — if not centuries — old, a new generation of performers is expanding the definition of what their traditional art form can be" (NYT).

"Folk," meaning people in general, goes back to Old English.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces it back as far as 999: "Þa elkede man fram dæge to dæge, & swencte þæt earme folc þe on ðam scipon lagon." Chaucer used it, in Middle English, c1405, that's surprisingly readable: "Vp on thise steedes, grete and whyte Ther seten folk."

And here's Alexander Hamilton, with American terseness: "There were Folks killed in 1723." That made me think of Ilhan Omar's "Some people did something."

IN THE COMMENTS: James K said:

Incidentally, the Alexander Hamilton who said "There were Folks killed in 1723" is not the Alexander Hamilton who co-wrote the Federalist Papers. It was some other guy with the same name.

And I see at the link that the other Alexander Hamilton was not an American, but a Scot. So that must be Scottish terseness. And I am retrospectively less reminded of Ilhan Omar.

How did the NYT international edition happen to publish an anti-Semitic cartoon?

Someone drew it. - Who?

Someone colored it. - Who?

Someone laid it out. - Who?

I’m sure the media will be all over this, right? https://t.co/S3UECess84

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 28, 2019

All I can find in the NYT about this is "NY Times Apologizes for Cartoon With 'Anti-Semitic Tropes'" with the byline The Associated Press:

The New York Times has apologized for an anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in the newspaper's international edition.

It showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dachshund wearing a Star of David collar and leading a blind and skullcap-wearing U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Times says the image "included anti-Semitic tropes." The cartoon appeared Thursday in print.

A tweet from the New York Times Opinion account Saturday said the image "was offensive, and it was an error in judgment to publish it."

The Times says the cartoon was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate, which has since deleted it.

So I guess the direct communication from the NYT is just a tweet, and the AP reported on the tweet, and the NYT carried the AP article. Why doesn't the NYT write its own article? Answer Cernovich's questions. And give a real apology!

The Times may say the image "included anti-Semitic tropes," but presumably somebody at the Times either did not think the image was anti-Semitic or wanted to publish something anti-Semitic. I'd like to see the Times investigate which of those options is true.

If the former, who perceived it not to be anti-Semitic and exactly why? If the latter... the NYT has a dramatically serious problem and needs to undertake a remedy.

By the way, can anyone explain to me why the breed chosen as the Seeing-Eye dog is a dachshund? The dachshund is wearing a Star of David collar (and "is" Netanyahu) so that means the dog is Jewish. But if you were drawing a cartoon and wanted, above all, to convey that this is a Seeing-Eye dog, you would choose a German Shepherd. If you wanted to reject "German," you'd pick a Lab or a Golden Retriever.

The NYT international edition is edited in La Défense, an area just outside of Paris, and maybe the breeds used as guide dogs in France are different from what we use in the U.S. But would a dachshund ever really be a Seeing-Eye dog?

My effort to research this turned up stories about a blind dachshund that had another dog, a pit bull, as its guide. So I think it's fair to say that the dachshund was chosen for some reason other than to convey the idea of a Seeing-Eye dog.

But what reason? Perhaps it's just that it's a small dog. But it's not a generic small dog. It has a distinctive elongated shape, and the illustration exaggerates the long shape. But what does that say about Netanyahu's ability to lead Trump? Is it meant as a phallic symbol? Are we to consider the history of how this breed came about in the first place?

The standard-size dachshund was developed to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow-dwelling animals, while the miniature dachshund was bred to hunt smaller prey such as rabbits.

Maybe the idea was that Netanyahu the dachshund would lead blind Trump to other animals. If so, the adversaries of Israel are being depicted as animals, which complicates the analysis.

I should add that the cartoon is extremely well-drawn and eye-catching. It's possible that people at the international NYT were just dazzled into a blunder. That would be phenomenally stupid, but stupid is  the least bad explanation.

IN THE COMMENTS: Answering my question why a dachshund, wildswan notes that hot dogs were originally called "dachshund sandwiches," and hot dogs may be "seen as particularly Jewish." (There's the all-beef Kosher hot dog Hebrew National.)

And James K says: "A German Shepherd is thought of as a majestic, powerful dog. The cartoonist wanted to depict the Jew as low and slithering, hence the Dachs[h]und. Nothing more complicated than that."

Here we go again: "Let’s name names."

Jennifer Rubin in WaPo: "Enough platitudes: Let’s name names."

If you forget the past, you can reuse the old slogans.

IN THE COMMENTS: James K is first to embarrass Rubin by quoting her "Surely logarithms exist to detect the lion’s share of racist and anti-Semitic material..."

Logarithms!!!

Henry says:

Surely logarithms exist to detect the lion’s share of racist and anti-Semitic material

How about thermometers? Surely thermometers exist that will do that?

Algorithm. Logarithm. Whatever it takes.

Edmund, accepting that Rubin meant algorithms, said:

First, no there aren't such algorithms that don't also punish satire, commentary, or legitimate speech. Second, they have hired some people to police things and we have found that they tend to ban/suspend mainstream conservatives, not just extremists. Third, twitter is barely profitable - they made their first profit last year after 12 years in the red. Profits seem to be about $400 million/year. So at $25/hr salary and $75/hr total cost (for bare-bones benefits and facilities), that's about 5 million hours of labor, or about 2400 people. To police 335 million users across the world. Facebook has a lot more profit and might be able to set up a more robust audit scheme, but as I said above "Who will watch the guardians?"

UPDATE: WaPo eventually changed "logarithms" to "algorithms."