In order to try to head off any possible confusion, I feel that I should explain that I am not affiliated in any way with the rock band Kansas. To my knowledge, I have never met any member of the band, or anyone directly associated with any member of the band.
I bring this up because Kansas included the song “People of the South Wind” on its album “Monolith”, in 1979. As people who were educated in schools in this state may know, and most other people probably do not know, the word “Kansas” comes from the language of the Kaw tribe, and is normally translated as “people of the south wind”. Thus my source for the phrase “… of the south wind”, is not the band’s song, but the same source that the band used for the title of the song. As to the use of the word “rant”, I’m sure that will be appropriate for at least some parts of at least some of the postings I plan to add here. Those who disagree with the sentiments I express may consider the word “rant” appropriate for the entire blog, but I would like to believe this is a matter of opinion.
On the subject of words that come from the language of the Kaw tribe, another of those words is “Topeka”, which is of course the name of the city that is now the capital of the State of Kansas. It used to be written routinely that the word “Topeka” meant “a good place to dig potatoes”, but in recent years I believe that some doubts have been expressed in at least some quarters about the accuracy of this translation. One school of thought (not often voiced) is that a more accurate translation might be “these honkeys will believe anything you tell them if you keep a straight face while you’re doing it”. Another possibility, also seldom voiced, is that the word “Topeka” was created by a shaman of the Kaw tribe who had a prophetic dream that a city in this location would one day become the state’s capital, and that the word should actually be translated as “behind schedule and over budget”.
To return to the alleged topic of this posting, I don’t believe I can be considered to have stolen the title of this blog from the band Kansas. I prefer to think that we have both drawn upon a shared cultural heritage.