If I were a reporter

If I were a reporter....

Dubya: I take all responsability for the mistakes made handling Katrina at the federal level.

Me: So...are you saying you agree that you should be impeached?

A new verb

Off of Bush for a moment (and only for a moment)...

The other day, I was giving a presentation for my course director's group for English composition in which we were talking about the various pedagogical used by various universities, and for shits and giggles, I did Baypath. It was not on our list, it's not a huge university, but I know it kind of okay, so I thought I'd cover it, to which someone asked, "where's Baypath?"

To which, I answered, "It's the all girls school at the edge of the Pioneer Valley."

To which, someone else added, "Excuse me."

"The all girls school at the edge of the Pioneer Valley."

"The what!?"

"The all girls school."

"I think you mean women."

This same person later that night attended our American Studies meet and greet and seemed surprised that I snubbed her. Hmmm. So let's discuss.

It's one thing to realize that your choice of language has an effect on the people you are describing (both personally and socially), I'd agree with that. To what level that affect happens well...that's a different story. If you think that the history of this nation's oppression can be erased by your saying African American rather than black, I've got news for you: you just aren't that important.

But more than that. This is a personal choice. You realize that your language has an effect and so you choose to affect your language. YOUR language. If you choose to affect someone else's language, then you are as guilty of the people you castigate--you are attempting to edit the way they talk about things. You are, in effect, colonizing their vocabulary.

There's a number of problems with this, not the least of which is the arrogance of hindsight. How, after all, do you know that "African American" will not one day be the new "colored," but what seems worse to me is that the whole process insinuates a certain anxiety of terms. A person who care free uses the term girls, gals, or guys, is suddenly expected to become a tight ass concerning these terms because YOU have a problem with them. Nor can you validate your own anxiety because it mirrors that of the group. There are plenty of guys, girls, and gals who don't mind being referred to by these terms. The psychosis is yours. It doesn't become any more social just because you want to spread it like a virus. Nor will it become more social, because it lacks etiquette. This censorship is, at the very least, rude.

Which brings me to my final point. I've invented a new verb that I hope all of you will join me in using: "Political correcting." Isn't that good. It's not like I was actually corrected, it wasn't like I was taken off a path that would have surely led to wickedness only to be put on a path that was righteously gender-race-age-sexual orientation blind. NO. I was simply politically corrected.

Now for the woman who was surprised that she got snubbed after she politically corrected me. Ahem... You got snubbed because you are rude. No amount of reading the politically correct dictionary is going to save you the fact that you're a nasty little Eichman. Or was it Goebells? Which one made people change their language?

I'll be the judge

I am down to one cigarette. One fucking cigarette.

On the one hand, I am elated with the progress I've made so far. I'm really proud of myself. I really feel as though I'm doing a good thing for myself and for my family.

On the other hand, I want a fucking cigarette so bad that if your hair had nicotine in it, I would smoke it.

The answer to all this is of course to keep yourself busy, which is relatively easy to do because I'm totally scatter brained at this point. Nonetheless, blog time:

Jason tells me that I should not worry, that things are getting better, that Katrina has brought the incompetence of the Republican party to a head and so the country is beginning to ask the hard questions again...like why Carl Rove would sell out the identity of a member of the CIA.

I agree with Jason in principle. Things are getting a bit better. Note the supreme court justice that's been nominated. She's a darling with the democrats, as if Bush was making ammends or something. It seems like he's stopped singing GOP uber alles, and finally realized that he's leading a country of various kinds of people. Well, good for him.

However, I can't for a second, agree with Jason on this whole shit coming to light thing. I've watched the opening to Law and Order too many times herr Drivler, and I know that there is a fine, yet definitive difference, between being investigated and being prosecuted. Honestly, investigate all you want, but if you don't prosecute, it's all just pointless hoolabalooh on the part of Washington investigators who like to look like they're doing something.

The problem as I see it is, all avenues for prosecution rest in the hands of agencies controlled by Republicans. In other words, republicans are responsible for determining the guilt of other republicans.

Oh, but surely my fears are unfounded. Surely these people are noble citizens first and members of the republican party second, right? I mean, if they knew that a republican had done something wrong, they would act outside their parties concerns in order to do the right thing, right?

Wrong.

That's where my hopelessness stems. From what I understand, from what I've seen, and believe me, the republican party has made no attempt to conceal any of this, republicans are out to get jobs for republicans. That's there goal. You fuck up, you're fire--if you're a democrat. You fuck up, and you're a republican, you're promoted. The entire organization seems to me to be value-less except that they watch each other's asses, and get each other off the hook when need be. They are an organization of fall guys, yes men, and cronies--the worst sort of nepitism because the family resemblance between these guys and gals is their willingness to surrender their principles in order to keep the GOP in power.

So, yes, I am hopeless. I don't think you can bring any of these guys in front of a republican body and expect justice. All you can expect is a public, and obvious, denegration of truth, justice, and the American way as the goon squad feeds us a group of lies, but worse yet, they don't care whether we believe them or not. It doesn't matter as long as they aren't prosecuted, which they won't be.

So, what's the upshot of all this? In a few years, people will have so little trust in republicans that the democrats will control everything. Great! So, we'll replace one crime family with the next. The greatest injustice the American people have sufferred, I think, will be the loss of our two party system. It will slip from one to the other without check or balance.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is hope. I don't see it, but I sure hope there's hope--if that makes any sense at all.