Just a suggestion
It ought to be evident to just about everybody by now that our beloved President will not go cheerfully, if at all. He may get out of the White House by January 20th, but not with a smile on his face. And who knows whether he will find some excuse to refuse to get out?
What if he has to be ejected by force? Some folks relish the thought of his being escorted out in handcuffs. Or just walked out with each arm held in a hammerlock by a different Secret Service agent or U.S. Marshal. Not I.
I prefer carrying him out in a straightjacket, like the addled madman he is. It reinforces what everyone ought to know — that he is an out-of-control loser who belongs not in the Oval Office, but in a padded cell at an institution for the criminally insane.
Which brings me to another bit of insanity.
Yup. This thing. It popped up (supposedly) in the Utah desert one day, all science fiction-y and mysterious. Then just as mysteriously it vanished, only to pop up again (assuming it's the same one) in Romania. And then in California.
Some think it's a beacon for interstellar space ships, manned by extra-terrestrials on their way here to conquer and eat us. Some think it's a practical joke. Some, including me, think it might be a new phase in the work of that mysterious English artist, Banksy. Either that or you practical jokers in Sigma Alpha Epsilon had better cut it out.
But lately, my opinion on the matter has begun to change. I think its mysterious disappearance is of a piece with the disappearance of the cat who used to intrude on the reports-from-home of PBS Newshour reporter Lisa Desjardins.
Thanks to the COVID-19 Plague, Desjardins has been reporting to us more or less regularly from a room in her home. From time to time, her tuxedo cat would pop up in the background. I mean this cat (circled in black on the white shawl atop the gray ottoman) who I caught snoozing while Lisa was giving us the Washington lowdown.
Once, (alas, I didn't think to photograph it) the cat was lasciviously licking its most private parts. Perhaps that's why I haven't seen the animal recently. I suspect that during broadcast hours it has been banished to the bathroom that contains its sand box.
Or perhaps, Lisa's cat is with the monolith in Utah. Or is it Rumania?Or is it California?
Between the pandemic and all the Trump insanity, not to mention the wandering monoliths and the banned cat, I wouldn't be surprised if all of us end up in straightjackets.
5 comments:
Pssst! It’s “straitjacket.” Fix, please, and then drop this comment down the memory hole.
Psst, Rand! According to my dictionary, either spelling is correct. I quote:
"strait·jack·et | ˈstrātˌjakət | (also straightjacket)
noun
a strong garment with long sleeves which can be tied together to confine the arms of a violent prisoner or mental patient.
• used in reference to something that restricts freedom of action, development, or expression: the government is operating in an economic straitjacket.
I'm going to take the liberty of keeping both your comment and the dictionary definition posted, as a reminder to all that spelling, like language, is fluid rather than rigid. But that a rigid adherence to traditional rules can get you into difficult, ah, straits.
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
I've missed Lisa's cat. Always enjoyed watching it while she was broadcasting. It lightened the mood.
Your blog, your rules, of course. I would not presume to advance my standards as dispositive, although most of the dictionaries to which I have recourse countenance “straightjacket” barely if at all. I acknowledge the fluidity of language, and also the creative tension between those who pull it forward, whose unimpeded progress would shortly render English unintelligible, and those of us who drag our feet, who if unresisted would render it stagnant.
I count myself among those who, risking pedantry, insist, for example, on the literal meaning of “decimate,” the original and literal sense being baked into the fucking word, and also resist, come to that, the tendency to use “literally” to mean “figuratively.” But what the hell: apparently dictionaries have begun to accept “irregardless,” which I look forward to seeing one day deployed, in a small-d democratic sense, in some future post here. Why indeed would you not, language being so vital, so fluid?
Seriously, you must have boundaries in English usage that you respect and observe, else I would expect to open this blog to entries framed in the language of text messages (as a duffer, I won’t attempt to mimic the style). What are these standards? I mean, we sneer at the Orange Man in part—small part, measured against his vast deficits—for the crude paucity of his powers of expression. Recall the Analects of Confucius:
A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.
Had I come, as a retired copy editor, to sneer, I would not have invited you to excise my comment. I regret that you apparently took offense, and retained it to mock.
cordially,
Rand: I take no offense. But dare I suggest that when you were born American, it was a great loss to the Academie Française, whose guardianship of the French language is taken as a sacred and official mission. Unfortunately, policing the language there has led to such terrible inadequacies of expression that they've had to illegally steal from the American English, leading to such suddenly "French" phrases as "le weekend" and, (in my opinion horrifically), "le fooding."
By the way, I'm with you on literally vs. figuratively, since they mean opposite things, at least for now. I'm not so sure about decimate. I think the meaning of the word has evolved, and I'd be amazed if every tenth man or woman, even while standing in front of a firing squad, could give you the original meaning. Alas, the Analects of Confucius are above my pay grade.
But hey, whaddya say we both give it a rest?
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
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