What It Means to Call Yourself a Conservative Has Changed a Great Deal Recently
Where did all this ignorance, violence, and bald-face lying come from?
A Slob in the White House Is a Very New Thing for America
America has fallen off a cliff when it comes to class, but do any of us deserve to be disgraced like this?
Tagged with: A Slob in the White House
Let’s Replace George Washington with Charlie Kirk on the U.S. Quarter
The American ultra-right-wing is lining up a heap of posthumous praise on Charlie Kirk.
Of course, not everyone feels the same, like the author of the meme at left, who points out that Kirk was merely a podcaster.
My problem isn’t that he was a podcaster, but that he represented the very worst viewpoints that America has to offer: white nationalism, hate, the rejection of science, sexism, climate denialism, and the glorification of ignorance.
Persist, Resist
Here we have a few words of Epictetus, one of the Stoic philosophers, whose thoughts are characterized by the idea that our lives should not be cushy, but rather the opposite, guided by self-sacrifice in order to live by the principles of virtue.
This is particularly relevant to life in the U.S. today. Are we willing to sit around and silently succumb to Trumpism, or will we persist and resist?
Tagged with: Trumpism
The Choices Americans Must Make
The lawn sign here reminds me of the American political rhetoric over the past decade, where people have been saying, “The Democratic platform needs to be more than ‘Were not insane Republicans.'” I remember thinking: I’m not too sure about that.
It’s not uncommon for U.S. voters to be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, but at no time in our history has this been more in our faces.
Tagged with: The Choices Americans Must Make
Another Note on Grammar
In an earlier post called Americans’ Grammar Is Deteriorating, But Let’s Keep Things in Perspective, I made the point that many of Americans’ grammatical errors have become normalized as our respect for our traditional English language has deteriorated, just like so many other aspects of our culture.
Some of these errors are more egregious than others, of course. Still unacceptable are sentences like “Roads is made of concrete,” and “Jim and I is friends.” Both violate the rule that the subject and the verb in a sentence must agree.
Yet, in the last ten years, we’ve accepted something akin to this, which we now hear constantly. e.g.: “There’s several ways to proceed from here.” “There’s” is a contraction for “there is,” and the verb ‘is” is singular, so the correct form here would be “There are several ways ,,,”
FWIW, when I was in fifth grade in 1965, it was made quite clear to my classmates and me that no one making mistakes of this order would be promoted to sixth grade, regardless of how many times he had repeated fifth grade. We all wondered if we were sitting among one of more of our hapless fellows who would occupy these seats many years later with grayish beards, collecting monthly Social Security checks, still trying to write simple sentences.
Of course, no one in today’s school system has anything like this to fear. We happily graduate kids from high school who couldn’t tell you where Wisconsin is.
Things have changed.
Tagged with: Note on Grammar
Americans’ Dwindling Self-Awareness
I’m wondering if people’s growing lack of consideration for others is a regional trend here in the Unites States, or it’s one of global extent.
I find it hard to believe, for instance, that the Japanese are suffering from this malady; it seems incomprehensible, given their ultra-refined culture of courtesy and decorum.
Tagged with: Americans' Dwindling Self-Awareness
Americans’ Grammar Is Deteriorating, But Let’s Keep Things in Perspective
The guy who wrote the meme here is referring to something called the subjunctive mood, used mainly to state a contrary-to-fact conditional. He’s not in LA, therefore we say, “If I were in LA,” not “If I was in LA.” Similarly, I would say, “If I were president,” rather than “If I was president,” because I’m not president.
Having said this, the proper use of the subjective mood has almost completely disappeared from English; news commentators butcher this far more frequently than they get it right. I’m not happy about this, but getting frustrated with the degradation of our language seems silly, when the United States is turning into an authoritarian state, and our planet is on fire.
Tagged with: Americans' Grammar Is Deteriorating
Life on Earth 50 Years Hence
Nicely put, Sir David.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but human civilization, driven by its voracious greed, is in grave danger.
For a while it appeared that humankind might find a way to harness its vast command of science and use it to prevent environmental collapse. Now, it’s anyone’s guess as to what life will be like 50 years hence.
How Many Americans Are “Pro-Assassination?”
A reader “Tim” sent me the meme here.
Thanks, Tim, but let me ask you this: Of all U.S. voters who are registered with a certain party, a clear majority, 54%, 44.1 million, are Democrats. How many of these people could honestly be said to be “pro-assassination?” 11? 85? Obviously, I don’t know, but no decent person is in favor of political violence.
What a remarkably asinine claim to make.
Tagged with: How Many Americans Are "Pro-Assassination?"
