Doctor Syntax Returns

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall
The vapors sweep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan

-Tennyson-


Every year at this time I let Doctor Syntax out of the Vicarage and let him raise hell with the way we've ruined the greatest language on Earth: spray painted it like an old abandoned subway car, put it up on blocks and stolen the wheels and made it all but impossible to have an intelligent conversation because, like one of those German Enigma machines, every word seems to change meaning every time it's used.

Every year brings the same references to "language police" because you know it's true and you know we're guilty of polluting the minds of millions with silly, balbative portmanteau words like Ginormous or Sexting, our relentless verbing of nouns like texting and friending and our instant acceptance of every cliche metaphor, metastatic Malapropism, stupid solecism and yes, with every pusillanimous political polemic we pass along.

No, if conservative, liberal, reactionary, fascist, anarchist, Marxist, royalist, and Fascist are all used interchangeably, we might as well stop talking, legislating, voting and adjudicating and take up arms. And we do.

Every year, as our vocabularies atrophy, we make up words or as our overuse of superlatives diminishes them, as our misuse erases them, we have to invent new ones. After all, when your skate board or your X-Box is awesome, you simply can't discuss how you felt when you saw that Hubble picture of some distant nebula, now can you? What happens to the real verb "to befriend" when it's more fashionably idiotic to "friend" someone or worse, toBFF them? It dies quickly of course and any real dictionary these days is a virtual Arlington of fallen words.

There's a college up in Michigan, Lake Superior State University, that's been putting out an annual list of words that need to die for 35 years. I'm afraid the school will die before they have any results to show. In fact if we still have universities in 35 years I have to wonder whether they'll be teaching in Standard English in the way medieval Universities taught in Latin, while business and popular pursuits are conducted in some 'consumerized' argot or vulgate designed to boost sales and befuddle customers while the general population can't read Hemingway, much less Tennyson any more.

No, I'm not the language police. The real language police are the people who tell you you're a racist if you call an Asian tiger or bear an Asiatic tiger or bear -- or that you may never end a sentence with a preposition. No, I just love English and as you know I love wordplay and the inventive use of words. In principle I don't object to such silliness as "chillaxin," the compound of two bits of dialect; chillin' and relaxin' but only in principle and never when used by some underage hipster with a two thousand word vocabulary. I even thought the short lived "not so much" routine was cute for a few moments, but that's the thing: with fish, house guests, metaphors and the Macarena; after three days one notices a smell. At least I do. Maybe it's time you did too.

Yes, I agree that "shovel-ready" is shovel ready for burial; I agree that it's time to stop calling every adviser a Czar. I am sick unto death at the "app app app app" that I hear quacked out at the phone store, butLSSU's 15 words are not enough nor does the list expose the inverted elitism behind our linguistic cacophony. We may have majored in English at the best schools, but in our HowdyDoody hearts we know it's bad to be grown up and embarrassing to sound educated and so we try ever so hard to sound like the baggy pants crowd who know just how the really cool kids talk in the penitentiaries and crack houses. We always fail at it of course, because those kids change their jargon faster than we can.

As I said, I only do this once a year and that's because it's useless, of course. It only lets me vent some excess steam pressure, to rant against the dying of the light. I know that "impact" will ever hence mean affect and effect and influence and inform and not be just a carrion metaphor. I know that those words are gone forever from popular parlance and that this little rant will be as hard for my grandchildren to read as Chaucer. Hell, animated video clips may have replaced the written word altogether by then and the University of Wii may be the new Harvard. I don't know. I do know that no one cares how much of value we lose every day or with what dross we replace it. I do know there are still people who can write well and I'm proud to appear here with them. I do also know It's New Year's Eve again and time for old Syntax and me to drown our sorrows -- metaphorically speaking, of course.

Rush lives

Whatever the cause of Rush Limbaugh's chest pains, they haven't been as fatal as some have reported but whether or not angina is involved, we can be sure they weren't pangs of conscience. His web site thanks us for our prayers ( if only he could hear mine) and is, as always, jam packed and bloated with fear mongering, dire predictions and apocalyptic warnings that if we don't "fight like hell" our country will be changed forever.Let's hope.

I recently read that only about 5% of those admitted to hospitals with chest pains die within a year, so one important and very needed change is probably not going to happen -- all the more so since most billionaires can not only afford health insurance but can afford to do without it. If you or I had rendered ourselves uninsurable through a lifetime of belly bustin' burgers, cigars, uppers, downers, pain killers and beer we might have a rather different experience and a bit less cause for optimism.

Yes, we have to fight like hell to stop this "buffoonery" says Rush about Bob Menendez' call to set aside ideology, turn off Limbaugh and pass the legislation that most Americans want. But Congress is ignoring the will of the people -- or at least the minority of the people he represents, says Rush. Public health insurance will change America forever -- forever! Government will "take over" health care just the way it took over all those plans you made for retirement. ( huh?)
Just the way Veteran's benefits took over - well whatever they took over and medicare helped keep exploding profits from eating up every last dime retired people have set aside.

It's a tenet of Buddhism, and a nice bit of wisdom, that change is constant and suffering is universal when we refuse to accept it. It's too bad in this case that Rush's refusal to let go of failed 19th century ideas will cause more suffering for everyone else than it will for him. We have been changing from the outset in terms of making the US a better place to live for more of its people and Rush has been a major clot in the artery of truth and justice and decency.

No, I'm not going to descend to his level and wish him an immediate death, in fact I hope he lives long enough to see that not one dire thing he has predicted has materialized and that he's been pretty much wrong about every thing he's said -- and until that happens, I hope those pains continue to hurt like hell.

Orly Taitz declares war!

-Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.-

Article III

Orly Taitz is calling for armed insurrection against the government of the United States. That's right, the same demented creature who's been thrown out of many courts for trying to prove that Barak Obama wasn't born in the United States is advocating that we take up arms against the government of The United States of America.

"Seeing targeted destruction of our economy, our security, dissipation of American jobs, massive corruption in the Government, Congress Department of Justice and Judiciary, it might be time to start rallies and protests using our second amendment right to bare arms and organise in militias."

Seems to me she her best defense is insanity, since anyone seeing targeted destruction of the economy by those who appear to have saved us from what seemed inevitable destruction wrought by George Bush has a good claim to be a nut job. Illiteracy would be equally as demonstrable (bear Vs. bare) but it's hardly a legal defense.

Sure it's easy to laugh. She makes it so easy, after all, but far less laughable are the millions who essentially agree with her that the damage done by borrow, spend and borrow some more economic policies of the Republicans is proof of Democratic malfeasance. I got another one of those "humorous" tracts this morning: Dems don't pay taxes or work and Republicans have to support them. Right.

No, you can't fix stupid and I fear that you really can't fix insane, particularly when it's pandemic. You can however, begin putting traitors in jail.

HOW CORPORATE AMERICA ENABLES SCAMS, SPAM AND CYBER-CRIME

Love has pitched his mansion in

The place of excrement;

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.

- William Butler Yeats -

Your ubiquitous (O)CT(O)PUS is no prude, but I get annoyed when breast and penis enlargement spam invades my e-mail box. Why spam when spammers know nothing about me, least of all my gender, proclivities, or species?

Neither this nor that, I am not a transgender, cross-dressing cephalopod in need of both. I have no interest in privileging one appendage over another and no innate need to preen or primp myself in gaudiness to facilitate naughtiness. In this or that, it seems, human beings are more akin to birds.

Perhaps followers of this forum have noticed: Spam is no longer delivered via e-mail but posted in the comment threads of popular blogs. The logic is simple: Why spam a single reader when you can reach a wider audience; for instance, a forum followed by hundreds or thousands of readers; and spammers have learned to customize their message with charm and inventiveness.

Recently, for instance, I posted this article, A Preoccupation with Rubber Ducks. Last week, one enterprising spammer raised the ante duck for duck and left this comment beneath my post:

While most birds are phallus-free, ducks are oddly endowed - up to 8 inches. Using high-speed video they found that ducks could go from zero to happy in less than half a second … That endowment should give the males an advantage during forced mating but these [editorial note: I eliminated the embedded url address that originally appeared here] free males aren't out of the woods yet … Why Yale decided to study duck penises in the first place I will never know.

The embedded url address links you to an online pharmacy that trades in generic versions of Viagra™, Cialis™, and Levitra™, among other prescription medications. Online pharmacies are illegal in the United States for good reasons.

Generic drugs manufactured offshore violate patents and trademarks, and consumers should be especially wary when purchasing drugs of dubious origin and quality. Furthermore, consumers should never self-administer any prescription drug, especially antibiotics and cardio-vascular drugs, without medical supervision.

Curiously, GeoTrust and McAfee have certified this obviously illegal enterprise as a secure e-commerce site. Furthermore, the horny duck accepts payment from American Express, Diners Club, Visa, MasterCard, and Western Union. American corporations, it seems, employ a double standard. They will litigate any infringements of their own rights yet sell anything to anyone for any purpose with impunity. These days, to make a buck is the most sublime of all virtues ... trumping laws, ethics, even hypocrisy. (O)CT(O)PUS intends to name them and shame them until they clean up their act.

Deja two, Deja three. . .

You probably have heard all about the second nutjob on a plane scare today. Same Amsterdam - Detroit flight, but this time the man did not come out of the toilet with a bomb, but an attitude. Naturally the crew was more than curious as to whether his half hour sojourn suggested criminal intent, but the unnamed man of so far unknown ethnicity became aggressive and abusive when asked and -- once again -- we had a plane sitting on the ground in Detroit while authorities screened all the baggage.

You probably haven't heard about another incident which happened yesterday afternoon at Palm Beach International. Seems someone decided their first class seat wasn't quite classy enough and despite the crew's attempt to make her feel as special as Ivana Trump insists on being made to feel, she launched into a tirade even this old salt would be proud of.

Some small children apparently weren't respectful enough so she started calling them "little fuckers" and yelling "fuck you" at their parents. After the plane was forced to return and the police came aboard, she refused to exit and gave the deputies and all within earshot the same carnal advice.

Of course we have flexible standards for terrorism and so Ms. Trump was deemed only terrible and not sufficiently terroristic for the FBI to be interested. I'm quite sure that if she weren't famous and had been wearing a hijab she'd have spent quite some time in custody, but she wasn't of course. She's just another self-important Palm Beach socialite who in a more just world would be another old woman selling fish from a pushcart.

Behind the veil

Legend has it that when the Nazis occupied Denmark, they ordered all the Jews there to wear yellow stars and that the King himself put one on his own clothing in order to show support. Of course it never happened there or anywhere else to my knowledge. Certainly not in France. I'm wondering though, if the draconian ban on wearing any Islamic garb that covers the face will elicit some French resistance to protest what seems to American eyes to be a violation of civil rights. No, I won't bet on it happening.

Although only some 400 women in France wear a Burqa, according to French intelligence services, the fear that Islamic extremists are a growing threat to peace and security in France and the rest of Europe is ever present. France has already passed a law banning the hijab and all other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools and the ruling party are proposing to deny citizenship to couples in which the woman wears a burqa.

"There are principles at stake: Extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country,"

says Jean-Francois Cope, the UMP party leader. So is he, I'd have to add, if that old Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité thing still stands taller in French eyes than ethnic purity.


I wouldn't be hard to find sympathy for banning yarmulkes, turbans, or any other religiously unique clothing in the US of A, but as yet, we're still more liberal in that respect than our Gallic brethren. Long may it be so. I make no secret about my distaste for religion and my fear of what happens when religion and government become too close. Yes, I am all too aware that a large number of Muslims hate our country so much that the random slaughter of innocents seems justified in their eyes, but meddling in anyone's right to express themselves by choosing clothing representing an affiliation or a belief is just such a dangerously close relationship and is anathema to me. No, I don't expect to see that happen here any time soon, but if it does, you'll be seeing me wearing anything they're throwing stones at be it monk's robes or djellaba -- and waving the flag.

connecting the dots

When I heard about the failed attempt to blow up an airplane yesterday, my first reaction was "how long will it take the Republicans to blame it on the President and/or Liberals. Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, as if he'd read my mind, stepped right up to the plate with

“People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration.”

Of course he has no way of knowing exactly or even generally what is known by the President, his advisers, the NSA or anyone else for that matter, but by implying that something is obvious and Obama has been oblivious, he wins another point in the fantasy touch football game of insinuational politics. Of course by some rule of the game I've never understood, it's still off-limits to insinuate that the George W. Bush administration ignored the idea that Terrorists could use airplanes and followed some imaginary, if not fraudulent dots straight to Baghdad.

Hoekstra, or Hokey, if you prefer went straight to Twitter and implied to whatever birds of that feather read his bird brained utterances, that the Obama administration had made some sort of outrageous solecism worthy only of an incompetent and coward by calling a failed attempt a failed attempt, which, of course it was.

"Administration says attempted terrorist attack. No. It was a terrorist attack! Just not as successful as they (AQ) planned." tweeted our friend Hokey.

A white House spokesman had been quoted by AP as saying

"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism."

By that logic, I'd have to say that my tossing a rock in a northerly direction is an actual attack on Atlanta, the importance of which is undiminished by Atlanta being some 500 miles away and my throwing arm no longer what it was.

I'm guessing with some confidence that the correct course of action would, according to Hokey, be to run down Pennsylvania Avenue shrieking "terrorist attack -- terrorist attack" because the panic factor has proved to work in the Republicans' favor often enough to warrant another try.

Unfortunately the determination as to whether we've indeed suffered an official terrorist attack is the job of the Attorney General who may have wanted to take more than 5 minutes to look into the sketchy and ever changing reports coming in from Detroit as to who did it, what was done and with what kind of device.

Of course I continue to assert that if the Republicans can do no more than sift and comb through ever word, action or inaction of the opposition for something that can be twisted, misrepresented or edited into a scandal they can use to bash Obama, they continue to be the worst enemy we have.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Every year we have all the family in for a Christmas Eve dinner which includes my homemade crab cakes and my husband’s prime rib. And some lovely bottles of wine.

There are all my adult children, parents, even an ex-wife and the grandchildren! The noise and dishes and mess! All is chaos and caphony….It is the best night of the year as all my loved ones are gathered around me.

I’ve said goodnight and Merry Christmas at least a hundred times as one by one, they have filed out the door. Admonished all to be careful and watch for ice and to call when they get home.

The dishes are piled in the sink the trash is full and the dog looks sick; might be all those scraps the kids snuck her under the table.

I still have to make the stuffing for the turkey we’ll have tomorrow and sort all those dishes and maybe a quick mop of the floors. It will be a late night, but we’ve had many late nights on Christmas Eve, my husband and I, wrapping gifts and putting together various toys or bikes. I was younger then.

There will be no little kids jumping on my bed and yelling, “Get up, Santa Claus came!” Those days are long gone but as the kids have grown up, we have developed new traditions.

But as much as things change, there remains enduring love and gratitude that we have each other. I don’t need a special day of the year to recognize that, but I am happy for this season in the dark dreary dead of winter to enjoy good company and all the pretty lights.

And I want to wish all my fellow Zoners and Swash Zone visitors a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, if not, I wish you a safe and peaceful evening.

Peace! Rocky

Noam Chomsky: America Is Not a Democracy

This brief lecture, from 2007, seems appropriate to revisit today:



Merry Christmas to all.

The plain sense of things

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.

-Wallace Stevens-
___________________________

Remember when Obama was "the most liberal Senator" in the whole, wide world and we were supposed to tremble at the thought of his limitless liberalness making Capitalism illegal while the Government Printing office was strained to its limit printing little red books? Wasn't long ago.

Now what seems like a majority of those who voted for him are asking what things would be like if he really were a liberal. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi -- they don't seem much like the little red " far left liberal" devils we were warned about. In fact, with a health care bill that seems to have been written by the Health Care corporations and the anti-abortion Religious Right, some are asking if this isn't indeed a country for old men; the same old men whose exclusive country club it's been all along.

No, it's not like the crazy bastards we had for the last 8 years are back and in fact I think we'd have been far worse off had the Republicans won the White House once again, but still. It's like we had come to an end of the imagination -- a fantastic effort has failed, a repetition in a repetitiousness of men and lies.