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What’s in a name? The N-word by any other name would mean the same

08 Mar

The following comment was made by a fellow blogger somewhere in the British isles. Click here to read the post that prompted his comment.

Submitted on 2011/03/06 at 9:06 pm
helpforyourenglish.wordpress.com
john-dough@live.co.uk

Who wrote the “rules’ of grammar? Grammarians. How did they decide what to write in their grammar” books? By observing what people said and wrote – usage. Then they came to their own ‘theories’ of what English grammar is (or might be) based on those observations and usage. Grammarians did not invent English. As such, grammar is descriptive and should not be prescriptive. From my experience, using was in your example rather than were is much more common. Trying to prescribe that people should use the subjunctive mood’ in that situation makes it sound like the English language is stuck in some Latin time warp. It’s not really worth getting worked up about.

This is my reply to the British grammarian’s comment:

Thanks for the visit, and thanks for the comment. In far too many instances, comments by viewers are content with saying Nice blog, or I agree or Your blog sucks, etc., but your comment is well written, to the point and welcomed. My first reaction was to respond at some length, but I realized that the subject is worthy of a separate posting on my blog. Stay tuned if you like—with my lack of typing skills it will take some time to create and publish.

And this is the separate posting I promised the British—an assumption on my part—blogger.

Dear John,

As I promised in my initial response to your comment, I have expanded my response into an essay that concentrates on current language restrictions in the United States. You cannot possibly know how pleased I was to receive a real comment rather than the usual one or two phrases given by others, comments such as nice blog, keep up the good work, you suck, etc. Comments such as yours are rare, to be treasured and responded to in kind.

Your comment has inspired me to reply in detail, perhaps more detail than you expected or wanted, and has given me far more than enough fodder for yet another lengthy essay on the use of the English language. I will cheerfully give you credit for stimulating me in that effort.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that you have touched a nerve with your comment’s statement that It’s not really worth getting worked up about. I submit to you that every teacher of English or for that matter every teacher of anything, regardless of the subject, should get worked up about the misuse of established English language mores when people with ivy league educations, some with multiple diplomas—attorneys, authors, doctors, high-ranking business leaders, presidents, millionaires and billionaires in industry and in entertainment venues—continuously violate the most simple rules—yes, rules—of everyday English.

I expect it from rappers, but not from the rest of our society—not from our president and not from the poorest children existing in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia or in the Okeefenoke Swamp area in south Georgia. As for ebonics, I abhor the term and refuse to discuss it, capitalize it or use it in a sentence—in fact, I will not even mention it in this essay—not even once.

The errors in everyday English that I discuss on Word Press are the little things in our society as regards proper English. My sainted mother, in 83 years of living, loving and learning accumulated hordes of homilies, parts of speech defined as inspirational sayings or platitudes. One of her favorites and also one of mine is the saying that admonishes us to take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. Following established rules is one of the little things, and effective communication is one of the big things.

The fact that the use of was rather than were is more common is not justification to continue using it. If that were true—note the if and the were—many, perhaps most of us, particularly in certain geographic regions, would still be spelling out and enunciating the word nigger instead of crouching behind the N-word wall.

It is an immutable fact that when we voice that alternative word as the N-word, our listeners know full well that the psuedo word has been substituted for the real word, the one that resides in the speaker’s thoughts, and thus immediately is projected and comes to rest in the listener’s thoughts, and the speaker, the user of the non-word N-word, put it there, and the listener can place a suitable target—I mean label—on the speaker by charging racism. The very fact of not voicing the pejorative term raises the shade on the speaker’s thoughts and shines the bright light of reality on the term, one that was, and still is, common in many countries, including yours.

There is a host of words on which we place no restrictions on their spelling in our writings or in our conversations—we may decry their use, but that use is common in literature and in everyday speech. That includes such words as honky, whitey, jew, kike, redneck, abie, chink, jap, greaser, frog, goy, kraut, polack, guido, limey (those of the British persuasion should take special note of that one), paddy, nazi, slant-eye, slopehead, nip, squaw, uncle tom and zipperhead. The list goes on forever, yet our society and its preoccupation with political correctness does not mandate us to prefix any of those words with a capital letter and substitute a made-up term for the pejorative term—J-word for jews and japs, for example, or K-word for kike and kraut, S-word for slant-eye, slope-head and squaw and L-word for limey—go figure!

Yes, the list goes on forever and we will forever continue to create new pejoratives to add to that list. Regardless of the list’s length, we can freely use any of those terms in writing, not as pejoratives in and of themselves but as support for whatever communication we are presenting to our reading audience—any of those terms except one—can you guess which one? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two won’t count.

If the bromide that tells us that the thought is as bad as the deed is true, then every English speaker in the world is guilty, whether or not racially biased. When we voice the acceptable euphemism N-word, the banned word is in our thoughts, and it resounds just as loudly in our brain and in the listener’s  brain as when we actually pronounce the banned word.

Just one more thought and I’ll release you and my viewers from bondage. A bromide in the English language is defined as a figure of speech meaning a tranquilizing cliché. Our use of the term N-word is a bromide, a figure of speech meaning a tranquilizing cliché. A bromide is also defined as conventional wisdom overused as a calming phrase, a verbal sedative.

This bromide has been foisted upon us as a tranquilizer, a medication, a verbal sedative prescribed by a liberal society in order to render us placid, peaceful and pliant, to purposely place us in that somnolent state of glorious oblivion—asleep—and to keep us there.

I propose an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America to allow us to call a spade a spade, a time-worn bromide that is now regarded as an epithet, a pejorative term, one that if used by a conservative member of Congress would probably bring Jackson, Sharpton, Braun, Powell, Conyers, Chisholm, Range, Jordan, Hastings, Jackson-Lee, Jackson Jr., Cummings and a host of others out of their respective congressional seats and on their respective congressional feet to simultaneously shout, Racist, racist, racist!, all wanting to order and exact the same penalty decreed by the Queen in the fairy tale Alice in Wonderland—Off with their heads!

For proposing that amendment my head would be on the chopping block, perhaps the first to tumble into the waiting handbasket, yet I am guilty of nothing more than wanting to bring a modicum of sanity to our nation. Our national ship of state is drifting aimlessly on a sea of insanity as regards the use of words considered to be pejorative. As a nation we can consider ourselves to be an asylum for the insane, with the patients giving the orders—again, as regards the use of pejorative words and phrases.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on March 8, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Frog legs, pocket knives & hackberry tea

04 Mar

This YouTube video is in no way related to the primary subject of this post, namely the treatment of raw sewage to recapture the 99.9% of raw sewage that is water and make it potable. I intend to end this post with the same video. I am presenting it here to ensure that my legions of followers have the opportunity to view it. If you view the video at this point and are so turned off by it that you don’t read the posting, it’s your loss—you’ll miss a highly educational essay—timely, well constructed and presented, and I say that with all sincerity aside. I know, I know, everyone always reads my posts all the way to the bottom, but just in case . . .

This morning while watching a cable show—MSNBC—I learned that at sometime in the future much of our drinking water will consist of treated sewage. That knowledge as defined by Wikipedia rests uneasy on one’s gustatory palate:

Sewage is water-carried wastes, in either solution or suspension that is intended to flow away from a community. Also known as waste water flows, sewage is the used water supply of the community. It is more than 99.9% pure water and is characterized by its volume or rate of flow, its physical condition, its chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains. Depending on its origin, waste water can be classed as sanitary, commercial, industrial, agricultural or surface runoff.

The spent water from residences and institutions carrying body wastes, washing water, food preparation wastes, laundry wastes and other waste products of normal living is classed as either domestic or sanitary sewage.

The purpose of this post is an attempt to allay the fears of those that may be taken aback when told that the water they drink in the future will be sewage, coming direct to them as treated sewage from some remote treatment plant that has taken the action necessary to eliminate contaminants from raw sewage and now wants people to believe that the water is pure and potable—drinkable.

I know that’s a stretch, given the fact that the so-called sanitary sewage includes body wastes donated—love that term donated—by the community. However, I have personal knowledge that the decontaminated liquid may be consumed without fear of the consumer becoming contaminated—how that knowledge was gained is the purpose of this post.

As a young boy growing up between the ages of six and nine years I lived near a flow of treated sewage moving away from the city’s treatment plant via an open concrete-floored ditch—locals called it the Big Ditch—idling along on its way to Luxapalila Creek, a stream that joins Mississippi’s Tombigbee River, a stream that converges with the Alabama River to form the Mobile River that in turn empties into Mobile bay on the Gulf of Mexico—take that, Mobile!

Purely as an aside, the Indian word Luxapalila is said to translate into English as floating turtles. Considering the effluvial characteristics of human waste materials entering the stream, perhaps the first syllable of turtles, accidentally but aptly, describes the water and its contents—how’s that for coincidence!

But I digress—back to the Big Ditch, its contents and the marvelous flora and fauna that thrived—-or throve, take your pick—when I was a boy. The ditch may well be covered by now, or perhaps its contents have been diverted elsewhere. Many years have passed since I was treated—so to speak—to a life in that area and that era. Perhaps the Big Ditch is still fulfilling its destiny as a playground for the enjoyment of today’s children, activities in dialectical opposition to their parent’s wishes.

On more than one occasion I and one or more of my boyhood friends—always boys, although girls would have been welcomed and we would have been delighted by their company, but none accepted our invitations—dined on the banks of the Big Ditch, feasting on fried frog legs and hack-berry tea, a simple meal easily prepared. From our respective homes we brought a small frying pan, a small pot for boiling water, a block of pure lard, our pocket knives, a bit of corn meal, a pinch of salt, a few matches and our appetites to the Big Ditch, a Shangri-la for giant green bullfrogs easily rounded up by a couple of hungry boys.

We built a small fire and boiled water for our tea—yes, we used the nearest available source of water, that which flowed along the bottom of the Big Ditch. When the water was boiling we dumped in handfuls of hackberries gathered from the proliferation of hack-berry trees that thrived on the banks of the ditch.

The hack-berry tea was set aside to cool, and we heated the pure lard in the frying pan. After separating the legs of several frogs from their bodies we skinned the legs, rolled them in the corn meal, placed them in the frying pan and turned them until brown.

Don’t laugh—our culinary talents and our gustatory senses  at our age were underdeveloped and unrefined, and we had minimum expectations that the meal would equal those served in fancy French restaurants specializing in fried frog legs and offering fine wines to accompany the meal—cuisses et vin de grenouille frits—the French refer to the legs of frogs as thighs instead of legs. The use of the word thighs is probably considered a sexual reference by the French, intended to affect the mood of a dinner companion, whether male or female. A Frenchman might say, Mon cher, j’aime le goût des cuisses, delivered softly and translated as My dear, I love the taste of thighs—his after-dinner delights would be guaranteed—dessert, so to speak.

So there you have it—treated sewage can be safely ingested, digested and further processed by humans without fear of damage to their bodies or their life expectancy. My body shows no perceptible damage from the meals of cuisses et vin de grenouille frits, and I am just a hop, skip and a jump away from successfully completing eight decades of living life to its fullest—whether because of the frog legs or in spite of the frog legs is unknown. However, also unknown is the collective fates of my various boyhood companions. Some of them or all of them by this time may have already exchanged their earthly realm for one or the other of our two alternatives.

I must reluctantly admit that the others—some of them, none of them or all of them—may have already succumbed to the ravages of various diseases that were directly attributed to those meals of cuisses et vin de grenouille frits, and I do not recommend such meals to today’s boys, at least not meals garnered from the same source or similar sources—nope, I would neither recommend it nor suggest it.

I am of the opinion that today’s youth, although physically larger, stronger and enjoying greater longevity and enhanced motor skills, are not significantly more intelligent—in fact many, perhaps most, are somewhat lacking in basic subjects as demonstrated by accumulated grades given on an incredible numbers of tests administered by our schools. There are so many unknowns that I hesitate to imply that meals such as we prepared in the Big Ditch increases longevity, but I will postulate that such meals may promote a higher level of intelligence.

Today’s youth lag behind in the three Rs—reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic and their skills in communication skills are deplorable—they are deficient both in receiving and transmitting the spoken word, obviously derelict in vocal expression and auditory reception. I feel that my detailing just one of my eating habits as a boy proves, at least in some degree, that consumption of treated sewage water will not be harmful to us and our neighbors, and that proof has been beautifully presented to my viewers. That’s why I was motivated to make this posting and I feel that I have made my point—my efforts were successful and productive for society.

I apologize for diverting my attention to other problems facing our society and our nation—I couldn’t help it—it’s either in my nature or it could possibly be the result of my being distracted by a cantankerous keyboard.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Postscript: The fact that I frequently watch MSNBC does not mean that I like MSNBC. I frequently tune in to get the side of the news and opinions that are presented by other, more reliable and more truthful cable entities. I do not  dislike MSNBC—I enjoy its graphics and its presentations of news that are not permeated with and perforated by personal political presentations, situations that are far less frequent than presentations that are afflicted—tainted, so to speak—well, let’s face it—filled with and distorted by such taints and afflictions. Tune in to MSNBC on any weekday evening and listen to the talking heads in its evening lineup—you’ll be both attracted and reviled by their vituperative views on subjects ranging from A to Z—from armadillos to zebras–but particularly on Cs and Rs—Conservatives and Republicans.

One more postscript: Having clicked on the center of the above YouTube video, you have read the notice that someone, somewhere and somehow decided that the videos violated copyright, and it is stated that “the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including Real Clear Politics” . . .

Obviously when I showed the video and in effect compared it with the effluvia and solid particles that characterized the Big Ditch in my boyhood, I stepped on someone’s pepperoni and they demonstrated their ability to exercise their right to censure that part of of this post. I consider it a violation of my right to express my disgust of the vituperative drivel that nightly spews from the show. It’s still on YouTube, along with similar excerpts from other Ed Shultz’ nightly rants—check ’em out.

And just one more note: I understand now why the network abruptly tossed Keith Olberman out the window—they didn’t need him because they had Ed Shultz.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
4 Comments

Posted by on March 4, 2011 in Childhood, cooking, fast food, food, friends, health, Humor, politics

 

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Cable TV—lots of leg, thigh and bosom . . .

01 Mar

Sometimes I tire in my wearisome and thankless quest for truth, and particularly for my efforts to identify the elements in our society that are rushing us headlong—helter skelter, so to speak—towards the brink of becoming a nudist society—a society of nudists, or naturists.

We desperately need Holden Caulifield of Catcher in the Rye fame to turn us around before we go over the edge of that precipice—what awaits at the bottom is largely unknown. We can fantasize, of course, but while some people might welcome hitting the bottom—so to speak—others might not be comfortable there. It takes no more than a quick peek into the future to see that our nation is swiftly sliding down a slippery slope. Actually it takes only a quick peek at the plethora of You Tube videos to confirm that movement.

All are familiar with the letters LOL, an acronym for Laughing Out Loud that is used to express laughter at some remark, either made by writers laughing at their own jokes or by anyone laughing at something said or done by another. I submit that in network television shows it also means Lots Of Leg.

There is another acronym, one that I just created that is assisting LOL in changing our entire world into one gigantic nude beach. That acronym is SUYT—the letter U is pronounced as a W, the letter Y takes the Spanish sound and becomes E, and with another E and a final T added, the acronym is voiced exactly as the word SWEET.

The acronym SUYT—SWEET—has a double meaning, and both meanings will be shown in these videos. The word is pronounced the same in both meanings, but when the letters are converted to words they read Show Us Your Tits and Show Us Your Thighs and television complies, especially cable television—the major networks are slowly catching on to the value of SWEET and slowing catching up—it’s just a matter of time and programming—perhaps they should proselytize some of the women on cable television.

During the annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans’ French Quarter the cry of SUYT, or Sweet, is frequently heard, shouted out by revelers towards women gathered on the balconies that abound in that section. Of course, rather than the letters of the acronym the actual words are voiced, and the streets and buildings reverberate with the cries of:

Show Us Your Tits!

I am unaware of any survey that documented the number of times the request was made of the second-story watchers during Mardi Gras, nor of any record for how many women complied with the request. I can only speak from personal experience, and that experience was not during Mardi Gras—it was during normal middle-of-the-week evenings of two nights I spent in the French Quarter—in case anyone is  wondering, I retired to my hotel at a decent hour and enjoyed a pleasant night’s rest—alone.

During a three-day official visit to New Orleans in my capacity as a representative of a federal government law-enforcement agency, I estimated that in the time I spent on the street in the French Quarter at least two of every three women standing on the balconies complied with the cry of SWEET—that’s an estimate of sixty-seven percent that acquiesced to the request of those below.

There is still another request that is frequently heard in the French Quarter, that of SUYB, pronounced SWEEB, but voiced as Show Us Your Bootie. I saw the underpants—panties—of a few affable women that evening but no actual booties. Perhaps the actual booties are presented during Mardi Gras, but I have no knowledge of that.

Incidentally, when did baby’s first footcovers become women’s backsides? Which came first? Which ever of the two came first, the name of the other should be changed, and I vote for keeping the name booties for the baby because there is a plethora of euphemisms for rear ends, all of which can be used both for men and women—backside, behind, bottom, breech, bum, buns, butt, caboose, can, cheeks, buttocks, derrière, duff, fanny, fundament, hams, haunches, heinie, hunkers, keister, nates, posterior, rear, rear end, rump, seat, tail and tush.

Enough already! The term bootie should be reserved for babies’ first foot wear, and I suggest that the religious political right push for an amendment to the constitution—it’s time, way past time! And if that can’t be done, place the term bootie in the same class as the N-word in order to protect babies from discrimination and ridicule—just as the N-word can only be used by Ns without fear of recrimination, persecution and possibly prosecution, the word bootie should only be allowed in reference to baby foot ware.

It can be done, Congress, so let’s do it!

I believe that our television networks deliberately show us virtually everything that is shown in the French Quarter, displayed by various female talking heads, and thousands of videos support that contention. I believe that it’s done for a dual purpose—first to lure us to the program and then to distract us from the meat—so to speak—of the program’s presentation. Both SUYT and LOL are shown, both singly and simultaneously—the networks are obviously in compliance with our desires, and far too often the views triumphantly trump the news.

At this juncture I’ll admit something that very few men will admit—my attention span wavers between the words spoken and the views tendered, and in that same vein I will admit that never, not even one time, have I claimed that I subscribe to Playboy for the great articles—Playboy has lots of great jokes and photos, but few of its articles qualify as great. If I had  my way the news would be presented by women such as—well, let’s see—there’s Nancy Pelosi and Helen Thomas for starters, and I’m certain that television producers need only to step out the front door and find many women that could be hired to read the news without distracting their male  viewers—probably most of would close our eyes and just listen, and we and our nation would probably be improved by the change.

Every visitor to this blog would probably admit that some of the women on television bare far more skin than necessary to impart important information to their audience—lots of leg, an ample view of thighs and a substantial expanse of bosom—fooled you there, didn’t I? You thought I was gonna say tits, but I substituted the word bosom, a euphemism prevalent during the Victorian era in our history—gotcha!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Postscript: I do not  subscribe to Playboy, nor do I subscribe to Penthouse, Playgirl or AARP.  I am, however, a long-time subscriber to our local daily, the San Antonio Express-News, a rag that is delivered promptly at 6:AM daily, rain or shine, and I recently subscribed to the new Old People Magazine, a publication that “gives old people something to read while waiting to die.” Below are some peculiar particulars of its content.

The first issue of Old People features a photo essay on Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as articles on the post office, the late Bob Hope, and how pills are dissolved into applesauce in order to make them easier to swallow.

Most of the content in the new magazine, however, will focus on the subject of most interest to old people: dying. “Myrtle’s Story,” an example of the short fiction included, reads in part: “Myrtle was old. Very old. She waited and waited. Finally, she died.”

According to Gurnstein, stories like this one have an important message of hope for the aged. This story says to old people, “All this waiting is not for nothing. Sooner or later, no matter how long it may seem, you will die,” Gurnstein said. “In other words, hang in there. In the long run, death will come at last.”

I am not making this up, and I’m anxiously awaiting my copy of the first issue and eagerly looking forward to the second issue, one that will feature pictures of a horse and a duck. Honestly, I am not making this up—if you have  even a shadow of a doubt, click here for more information.



 
4 Comments

Posted by on March 1, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Listen up, Utah—Tee is for Trooper . . .

19 Aug



Listen up, Utah!

You should stop quibbling with the courts and do the right thing—take Jesus and religion out of the equation in your quest to identify and honor those troopers that have died while protecting the citizens of your state. Do away with the cross, at least with the top part of it. Everybody will remember that it was a cross and in their memory it will still be a cross. And trust me, the courts will not order the modified structure demolished. The conversion can be done cheaply and quickly and there is nothing the courts can do to stop it or reverse it or change the modification. It’s so simple it’s a wonder no one has thought of it before now. Leave it to me, your humble writer, to come up with a suggestion that will settle the problems once and for all, and will offend no one, not even Christians.

This is the answer:

Leave the monuments exactly where they are—remove that part of each monument that stands above the crossbar, and the result is what you see in the image on the right.  Just change each cross to a capital Tee, with the understanding that the capital Tee stands for Trooper, the noble profession of the officers that are being honored and memorialized by the monuments. The crossbar of the Tee will still provide space for the personal information on each trooper.

It’s only fair—what is the religious makeup of Utah’s state troopers? Are there any Jews, Agnostics, Muslims, Hindus, Athiests, Buddists, Taiosts, Wiccans, Pagans, Druids or Scientologists listed on the rolls of Utah’s troopers? There are legions more of those that profess to embrace religions other than Christianity, and you can be assured that none would want the cross to be used as their memorial.

If your rolls include such persons, how will they be honored if they die in service to the state? Certainly not with the Christian cross—none of those troopers are Christians, and neither they nor their loved ones would agree for a cross to be erected in their memory. They would, however, agree to the use of a capital Tee in recognition of their contributions to society and to honor their memory. And if there are none presently on the force, would you deny employment as a trooper based on an applicant’s religion being other than Christian? Of course not—talk about a case that would lose in court—it would never get out of your local courts.

So let’s do it, Utah—let’s do it now before destroying all the crosses. Simply modify them as suggested and make the courts and the atheists and all the rest of the nit pickers happy—they may change their stance and decide that the Tees are an eyesore and are obstructing Utah’s magnificent views, but that one will sail through the courts on your side!

That’s my suggestion and I’m sticking to it!

PeeEss: I offer this suggestion without any anticipation of remuneration, but I would appreciate a word of thanks!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on August 19, 2010 in Uncategorized

 

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Delphiniums and Al Gore . . .

22 Apr

Hey, since you’re already on my site, why not click here to check out my About the King of Texas? As I promised when I began blogging in March of 2009, I have expanded it, and I welcome comments on that expansion. And if you’ll click here, you’ll find lots of stuff about me that you really wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Now on to this posting featuring a purple delphinium and Al Gore:

Earlier this year one of my three princesses, the one that lives, loves and works in Virginia, posted a gorgeous image of a purple delphinium to her Word Press blog. The photo was so beautiful and I liked it so much that I spent a goodly amount of time composing a comment to express my liking, and I used the comment to express my opinion on a certain figure that looms large in our political scene, so large that at times it raises my ire and restricts my view. I’m unsure why the delphinium directed my thoughts to global warming—perhaps I felt that if global warming is a reality, there may be no purple delphiniums in our future.

Click here to view a delightful delphinium with a plethora of pulchritudinous purple petals (I really love alliteration!)  http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/fridays-eye-candy/#comments.

With full realization that one’s memory tends to wane as one ages, I do not believe my daughter has read my comment, so I am making it a separate posting on my blog. I’m bringing it out of the shadows of comments and into the bright light of its own posting. My humble opinion is that my comment deserves wider dissemination, and my ego requires it—nay, demands it!

Here is my original comment on the purple delphinium, and I welcome comments on my comment:

Your photographic representation of a purple delphinium finds me and leaves me at a loss for words adequate enough to praise its beauty. I can only say that it is NOT disgusting, grotesque, hideous, homely, offensive, plain, repulsive, ugly or unattractive.

As an afterthought, I suppose I could say that it is admirable, alluring, angelic, appealing, beauteous, bewitching, charming, classy, comely, cute, dazzling, delicate, delightful, divine, elegant, enticing, excellent, exquisite, fair, fascinating, fine, foxy, good-looking, gorgeous, graceful, grand, handsome, ideal, lovely, magnificent, marvelous, nice, pleasing, pretty, pulchritudinous, radiant, ravishing, refined, resplendent, shapely, sightly, splendid, statuesque, stunning, sublime, superb, symmetrical, taking, well-formed, and wonderful, so I will say it—in fact, I just said it.

As you well know, I face the East every morning and bow in homage to a giant, one that resides in the East—no, not the sun. I bow to a giant that is normally quite garrulous, a towering presence in all our media sources, but for some strange reason has fallen silent in recent weeks, a silence coincidental, perhaps, to the nation’s recent record snowfalls. Be that as it may, while bowing I repeatedly chant, “Al, baby, you’da most!”

My humble bow to that giant and my paying homage to Him (note the capital H) is in recognition of the fact that He is a giant that, for various actions ranging from beneficial to nefarious with all impinging on our society, will remain a giant unless discredited, and will be firmly ensconced in future annals of American history.

That giant is Al Gore, of course, the One (note the capital O) that foretold the extinction of our planet due to global warming caused by mankind, and for that prescience, that foresight, that knowledge of things before they exist or happen, had a Hollywood Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on Him.

Let’s face it—in his prophecies, Al Gore rivals Nicodemus!

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I am deeply indebted to Al Gore for his invention of the internet—were it not for that prodigious discovery, I would really be at a loss for words—my comments on your blog postings would be reduced to words and phrases such as oh boy, great, nice, wow, okay, right on, you go girl, keep it up, make it happen, give us more, etc., etc., etc.

And also in the interests of full disclosure, I must reveal to your visitors from across the world that my compensation from you is based on the word counts of my comments praising your work, and varies in direct proportion to the number of words—fewer words less money, more words more money.

“N’uff said, or is that more than enough? Can you really afford me? Have your people call my people to discuss different terms of compensation.

I know, I know—I have far too much time on my hands!

 
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Posted by on April 22, 2010 in Uncategorized

 

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School teachers rock!

24 Jan

I recently received this e-mail, Teacher arrested at JFK, from a relative in Dallas, and I felt that it should be disseminated as widely as possible. It was very difficult to confirm with Snopes because of the profusion of articles dealing with the arrest of teachers including arrests for DUI, indecent exposure, drug theft, leading prayer, dealing crack, having sex with minors, early dismissal, slaying stepdaughter, brainwashing kids, kicking students in karate class, murdering another teacher, etc., etc.

The scope of these arrests and their reasons reflect poorly on our historically vaunted teaching profession, but they comprise an infinitesimal part of the whole—they amount to no more than the teeny-weeniest part of the iceberg’s tip. The greater part of the educational iceberg is comprised of teachers that are largely and historically overlooked and underpaid. They are the ones that work and fight in the trenches, the ones that dedicate their days, their nights and their lives to helping families and other elements of society mold students into outstanding adults, and the ones that are in a great measure successful in their efforts.

The story of the teacher’s arrest is untrue, of course, but it’s funny and it’s very creative, obviously penned by someone familiar with mathematics (I’m not very familiar with mathematics, but would like to believe that I’m familiar with creativity in the written word). I am using it in this posting because it enables me to expound on my feelings and my respect for teachers—and I feel that I’m qualified to express my feelings and my respect because I’ve been paddled by some of the very best—seriously!

This is the story as I received it in an e-mail:

Teacher arrested at JFK

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport when he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. The man was not identified, but the Attorney General said that he has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

“Al-Gebra is a problem for us,” Attorney General Holder said.

“They derive solutions by means and extremes, and they sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.”

“They use secret code names such as “X” and “Y” and refer to themselves as “unknowns,” but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval, with coordinates in every country.

“As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, “There are three sides to every triangle.” (The Snopes article added the following item: The teacher was found carrying code books written in an arcane language called “calculus,” which the NSA is currently attempting to decode)

When asked to comment on the arrest President Obama said, “If God had wanted us to have weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes.”

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

It is believed that the Nobel Prize for Physics will follow. (This was not included in the Snopes article)

The comment attributed to President Obama was attributed by Snopes to Hillary Clinton as follows:

When asked to comment on the arrest, Senator Hillary Clinton said, “If nature had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, she would have given us more fingers and toes.”

House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or more profound statement by the senator.

On a personal note, I believe that neither President Obama nor Hillary Clinton made the statement. I don’t believe it because the statement is funny, and neither person is capable of exhibiting that level of humor. I have not detected one whit of humor in either person at any time since they stepped into the national spotlight.

Those that laugh when a person says something intended to be funny are not always laughing with them—quite often they are laughing at them.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
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Posted by on January 24, 2010 in Humor, Obama administration, politics, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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