This week’s words all have to do with public ignominy…
February 20, 2001
February 9, 2001
SEMI TRUTHS: Vol. 1, Issue 1
THIS MODERN LIFE
I love living in the 21st Century.
True, when I woke up on January 1, I was a little disappointed that my Honda Civic ® had not been somehow magically replaced by a Jetsons-style hover car, and no robot man-servant was available to cater to my every whim, but give it time.
Look at what we do have: pocket-sized phones and Personal Digital Assistants, movies on 5-inch DVDs, CD players in our cars, and powerful computers at home and at work that allow us to download choppy streaming video of naked people coupling in Malaysia (um…so I’ve been told).
I’ve been lucky: with my college degree in Liberal Arts, an otherwise brilliant future in the retail or food service industries was interrupted by the Internet Revolution and my discovery of a previously unsuspected knack for Information Technology. As a PC Support Guy ©, I have taken a solemn oath to use my powers only for Good and never for Evil. I know too well the dangers of succumbing to the dark side of technology.
Speaking of Star Wars ®…
THE BUSH EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
…or perhaps that should be BACK TO THE FUTURE, as the once-and-future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finds himself on Capitol Hill pushing for some kind of super force-field to protect our nation against nuclear attacks from “rogue states”.
Oh man, not this again! I can already hear the voice of James Earl Jones…
“Don’t be so proud of this technological terror you’ve created. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. This is CNN!”
Didn’t we leave this behind with Ronald Ray-gun? Does anybody think this thing is really going to work? There’s an expression that used to be popular, referring to something that should be easily learned: “it’s not rocket science”. So what expression do rocket scientists use? More importantly, what expression do they use now that they keep launching missiles at Mars and missing!!!
During the most recent set of missile tests, these “rocket scientists” even handicapped the demonstration by slowing the “enemy” rocket to a virtual standstill and launching decoys with big green arrows pointing back at the incoming that said “Hey guys, over here!“… and they still missed it.
Here’s an idea: let’s train our soldiers to stand in open fields and fire at incoming nukes with their rifles. I think they’d stand a better chance. For heaven’s sake, who’s going to launch a missile at us in the first place when it can be so easily tracked. That would be like the Unabomber putting his return address on a package. It would be so much easier to smuggle a bomb over the border from Mexico; say, for example, in a van full of illegal immigrants.
According to a New York Times January 15 front-page story by Steven Lee Myers:
“Rumsfeld…called today for a sweeping revision of the nation’s deterrence strategy and weaponry, advocating increases in military spending, the deployment of a national missile defense and a tougher stand toward China and North Korea.”
But I thought China was our new best friend in the WTO? And aren’t we in negotiations with North Korea? (Unless they’re still mad about that time Hawkeye and Trapper John had a bit too much of their homemade hooch and drove to the DMZ to create an estuary of “the Yellow Sea”.)
The Cynic in me says that is just an overt tactic to pay off fat cat defense contractors and Republican campaign contributors, whereas the Skeptic in me believes that it is a desperate attempt to keep old Cold War alliances from collapsing under the diminished fear of nuclear attack. That leaves very little room for the Optimist, which merely hopes that I’ve fallen asleep in front of the TV during a documentary retrospective of the 1980’s.
Yes, I still do a double-take when I hear references to “the Bush Administration” in the news. I know, I know: “get over it”. In my more rational moments, I realize how grateful I am to live in a nation governed by democratic principles, where any drunk-driving, glad-handing, blue-blooded millionaire Texas oilman who can’t string together a coherent paragraph can become president through the cherished tradition of individual citizens exercising their Constitutional right to go into the ballot booth and accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan. In my less rational moments, I look forward to my 1.3 trillion dollar tax refund!
THE HOPE-FULLER BUSH MAN
“I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, (we) will make America what we want it to be a literate country and a hopefuller country.” George W. Bush, Jan. 11, 2001
In my introductory issue, I pointed out that I try not to use the expression “hopefully” because of its inherent usage problem. According to an entry at Dictionary.com:
“Writers who use hopefully as a sentence adverb…should be aware that the usage is unacceptable to many critics, including a large majority of the Usage Panel…. Like other sentence adverbs such as bluntly and happily, hopefully may occasionally be ambiguous. In the sentence ‘Hopefully, the company has launched a new venture‘, the word hopefully might be construed as describing the point of view of either the speaker or the subject. Such ambiguities can be resolved either by repositioning the adverb (as in ‘The company has launched the new venture hopefully‘) or by choosing a paraphrase (‘One may hope that the company has launched the new venture‘).
I suppose I should give “President” Bush credit for finding a unique and original course around that conundrum.
Why is this important? Well, after eight years of complaints that Bill Clinton’s lack of a personal moral compass contributed to the attenuation of the Chief Executive as a moral exemplar in our time (an objection to which I have some sympathy, though I think that the process started long before the Man From Hope came to office), I do not think that four years of hearing the English language butchered on a regular basis should be considered an improvement. I have children just entering grade school, after all.
“I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.” George W. Bush, Jan. 29, 2001
Well, that’s a relief!
LOST IN THE TRANSLATION
If you’ve read this far, I wish to pause for a moment to point out that I do not intend to spend every column lampooning our maundering “President”. But once I start, it’s like eating peanuts. Shall we have some more?
The Texas Observer started having some early fun with then-Governor Bush before the rest of us even had a turn at bat. In an article titled “Don’t Mess With Roofing Tiles!” by Jorge Arbusto, they used a computer to translate the Governor’s 1999 State of the State speech into Spanish and then back into English. The editors note that “through this remarkable process, ‘Texas‘ becomes ‘Tejas‘ becomes ‘Roofing Tiles.’ Similar linguistic improvements abound…”
“We began this session with a national projector in us. They have asked to me about him. They have asked to him about him. You did not request he – but she is here anyway. And we can any vision he like distraction, or take hold it as opportunity to show the world what limited and constructive government seems. Here in the secondly greater state of the nation – eleventh greater economy of the world – we satisfy by only 140 days only once every two years. And we found a the job done, because the limited government works. The limited government brings the center. He requires to us to put to a side posturing and policy and to find the Earth common. We differed sometimes, but so in agreement. We know that we served Texans more better possible when we worked together in an alcohol of the cooperation and the respect, when we looked for the common Earth based on the values of Roofing Tiles of the limited government, of the local air-traffic control, strong families, and the personal responsibility….”
What startles me is how much that “translation” reads just like the unmodified Geo. Bush during the debates!
SEMI DRIVER IN THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
- For the full text of “Don’t Mess With Roofing Tiles!“, see
http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/roofing_tiles.html
- For up-to-date reports of the botching of our language, visit
The Complete Bushisms at
http://www.slate.com/id/76886/
SEMI FINAL WORDS
All definitions liberated from Dictionary.com
- rogue (n): one who is playfully mischievous or impish; a scamp
(One can only suppose that attempting to protect ourselves from “impish” states doesn’t carry the same sense of urgency)
- co·nun·drum : a difficult problem
at·ten u·a tion : To reduce in force, value, amount, or degree; weaken.
ex·em·plar n. One that is worthy of imitation; a model.
pred·e·ces·sor n : one who precedes you in time, as in holding a position or office
maun·der·ing: to speak indistinctly or disconnectedly