Words, and the ways people use them, have always held a special fascination for me. Words express, inform, engage, motivate, heal and harm. They can dismantle selves as well as they can inspire movements. They enrich with metaphor and catch us up with irony. They can equally be constructed into forms of art and be debased by misuse. Here I offer a few ideas about the latter dichotomy, with a bit of a rant about some of the more annoying uses of language today. Continue reading “Language Habits (A Series of Occasional Rants)”
On Entitlements
Time to set the political language straight. The word ‘entitlement’ has been turned inside-out as to its meaning. Many seem to think it is an epithet. I gather this is a mistake made largely on the right, but also by some on the left. Continue reading “On Entitlements”
The Trouble with the Trublicans
In 2016 the punditry class told us of the takeover, even the hijacking, of the Republican Party by Donald Trump. As Trump progressively dropped his competitors in the GOP primaries, won the party’s nomination, and defeated Hillary Clinton in the general election, his presumptive takeover became complete. The party was now his, for worse or worse yet.
This story had considerable street cred. After all, his GOP primary opponents
and the traditional Republican Party “establishment” sharply denounced Trump for almost everything: his (lack of) credentials, his extravagant lying, his crudeness (if less so his misogyny), his violation of longstanding political norms. No one, they asserted, was less prepared or less fit for the presidency. The party’s most recent standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, urged during the 2016 primaries that “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.” Continue reading “The Trouble with the Trublicans”
