In the past few months, we’ve been subjected to a lot of campaigning, much of which has become unhelpfully negative, especially recently.
I’m not interested in limiting free speech or becoming the “word police,” but from my perspective, there are some words that have lost real meaning during all this campaigning and mudslinging, and I propose a moratorium.
Here are words I think we should suspend.
Terrorist: We should stop using this word on each other. It’s just common sense that if Barack Obama wanted to destroy America the way al-Qaida operatives destroyed the World Trade Center, he would have been found out by now. We’ve had him in our sights for almost two years, and the best we’ve come up with linking him to terrorism — and domestic, not foreign terrorism, at that — is a tenuous connection to Bill Ayers, who, whatever his past, is now an honored educator.
Either Obama doesn’t have Islamist terrorist connections, or we are extremely poor detectives. If it’s the latter, we may have bigger problems on our hands than we’ve supposed.
Maverick: Besides the objection of the actual Maverick family in Texas, the word “maverick” isn’t really appropriate to describe the policies of a politician or, especially, a team of politicians. And if it is, it shouldn’t be.
We’re not electing Best Cowboy; we’re trying to elect a president, who will have to work within the system the Founding Fathers set up. Saying we’d like to go back to the original plan laid out in the Constitution isn’t “maverick”-like. It’s conservative by definition.
Defense: We should stop using this to describe anything related to the Bush Doctrine — that is, the idea pre-emptive strikes against sovereign nations are a good idea.
This is not defense.
Objections to that statement usually fall into the “best defense is a good offense” category.
OK, maybe. But we call that “a good offense.”
I also propose we stop referring to the “Star Wars” national missile defense system as “defense” until some of those missiles start actually hitting their targets.
Alien: Of course we can continue to use this word to describe E.T., but there’s no reason to continue to use it to describe immigrants. The repercussions for the global economy after America’s recent financial crises should make it clear we’re living in an interconnected world.
No human is from outer space, in other words.
Most people who object to the word worry that “alien” makes immigrants sound scary. I’m less worried that the fright factor of this word will rub off on immigrants, though, than that it will wear off through overuse, making it useless for “War of the Worlds” type movies, books and other media.
Imagine Will Smith in “Independence Day” coming toward the audience, fiery explosions in the background, for instance, to confront your hardworking neighbor or grandparent or a factory worker educated and skilled enough to perform open-heart surgery on you if you were in his country.
Not very thrilling, I’d say.
All the Joes: The opposite of “alien,” the Joes are supposed to make us feel connected to the down-home lifestyle and values they apparently represent. We’ve been introduced to all kinds of Joes: Joe the plumber, Joe Six-pack, Joe Cool, cup of joe. Maybe they do represent “real America,” but I’ve had enough of them.
Note, however, that Joe the plumber has inspired a “new” national habit of designating people by their work titles; this is Chinglish creeping into common use. I approve of that in general.
I just wish all of us regular Joes would get a rest.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
10/24/08: We, and the laundry, can wait for a leader
This election season, my dishes have been piling up. My television has also been sitting dark, its about-to-be-useless antenna perched on top at an angle that makes it look forlorn; the laundry hamper, on the other hand, gets larger and less lonely by the day.
I’ve been ignoring them for the better part of a month in an attempt to learn as much as possible about our presidential candidates.
I’ve watched all three debates, of course, and spent every free night at virtual Town Hall chatting about polls and looking at graphs and Web sites.
I paused for a moment this afternoon to talk to my grandma, who declared herself — unprovoked by me — more interested in this campaign than any she could remember. She said, with an enthusiasm I found familiar, and a bit of incredulity, that she couldn’t even be sure who she was going to vote for.
I should probably look into renting a dishwasher.
It’s not much longer that I’ll be ignoring chores for election research, though, and my grandma will have to decide who her candidate will be in less than two weeks.
Whoever wins then will have a tough job, but it will be his. We’ll keep up our enthusiasm for the issues that most affect or impress us, but we’ll all go back to washing dishes and clothes and probably to watching sitcoms and prime-time dramas rather than debates, and Barack Obama and John McCain will get on with the jobs we’ve elected them to, one as president and the other as senator.
That’s pretty much how it should be, I figure.
We choose who will have the specific responsibilities of commanding the military, approving laws and signing presidential fitness awards; we don’t do these things ourselves.
I sat in a room with U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy from the 5th District two weeks ago, after he’d ridden a local bus to show support for the updates needed to accommodate riders with disabilities. He talked about sitting in front of the Stop & Shop on West Main Street in New Britain to speak with voters about the bailout when that vote was first brought before the House last month, and the responses he got, in person and in calls to his offices.
I had almost asked him at the beginning of the meeting whether he’d gotten my letter two years ago agreeing with his stance on Iraq. I would have meant it as a joke, knowing he was too busy to open and read all of his own mail.
By the end of the meeting, I would not have been surprised if he had read and remembered it.
"Oh, you’re that Alicia," he might have said, and I would have felt my face go "aw, shucks" red.
So here’s my take on a Connecticut constitutional convention: We elect our leaders to lead. And if our federal representative is accessible to us, so are our state representatives — even more so. When we don’t like what they’re doing, we write, call or protest to show it.
We don’t need a convention or a ballot initiative allowing us to vote on every issue. We can apply our enthusiasm to electing the right people into office, and once we’ve voted them in, we can tell our representatives, town council to president of the United States, what we think, and how we’d like them to vote, anytime.
The rest of the time, we’re free to attend to our own responsibilities.
Like doing the dishes.
I’ve been ignoring them for the better part of a month in an attempt to learn as much as possible about our presidential candidates.
I’ve watched all three debates, of course, and spent every free night at virtual Town Hall chatting about polls and looking at graphs and Web sites.
I paused for a moment this afternoon to talk to my grandma, who declared herself — unprovoked by me — more interested in this campaign than any she could remember. She said, with an enthusiasm I found familiar, and a bit of incredulity, that she couldn’t even be sure who she was going to vote for.
I should probably look into renting a dishwasher.
It’s not much longer that I’ll be ignoring chores for election research, though, and my grandma will have to decide who her candidate will be in less than two weeks.
Whoever wins then will have a tough job, but it will be his. We’ll keep up our enthusiasm for the issues that most affect or impress us, but we’ll all go back to washing dishes and clothes and probably to watching sitcoms and prime-time dramas rather than debates, and Barack Obama and John McCain will get on with the jobs we’ve elected them to, one as president and the other as senator.
That’s pretty much how it should be, I figure.
We choose who will have the specific responsibilities of commanding the military, approving laws and signing presidential fitness awards; we don’t do these things ourselves.
I sat in a room with U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy from the 5th District two weeks ago, after he’d ridden a local bus to show support for the updates needed to accommodate riders with disabilities. He talked about sitting in front of the Stop & Shop on West Main Street in New Britain to speak with voters about the bailout when that vote was first brought before the House last month, and the responses he got, in person and in calls to his offices.
I had almost asked him at the beginning of the meeting whether he’d gotten my letter two years ago agreeing with his stance on Iraq. I would have meant it as a joke, knowing he was too busy to open and read all of his own mail.
By the end of the meeting, I would not have been surprised if he had read and remembered it.
"Oh, you’re that Alicia," he might have said, and I would have felt my face go "aw, shucks" red.
So here’s my take on a Connecticut constitutional convention: We elect our leaders to lead. And if our federal representative is accessible to us, so are our state representatives — even more so. When we don’t like what they’re doing, we write, call or protest to show it.
We don’t need a convention or a ballot initiative allowing us to vote on every issue. We can apply our enthusiasm to electing the right people into office, and once we’ve voted them in, we can tell our representatives, town council to president of the United States, what we think, and how we’d like them to vote, anytime.
The rest of the time, we’re free to attend to our own responsibilities.
Like doing the dishes.
Friday, October 17, 2008
10/17/08: What the Internet is best at: sharing ideas
I’ve been spending a lot of time at Town Hall lately, talking politics.
Not in your town, though. I mean the national, virtual “Town Hall” for Vote Obama, an independent effort inspired by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, hosted on the networking Web site Facebook.
Almost every night at 8 for the last few weeks, I’ve gone to the “Vote Obama” application on Facebook and met up with others invested in the outcome of the presidential election, many of whom come every night and some of whom are now, I’d like to think, friends.
I know I wrote last month about Internet weddings; I was against them. I still am. But this kind of thing — getting together to discuss topics of the day with people you’d never have met otherwise, from across the country — is exactly what the Internet is best at, and is, or should be, the raison d’etre of sites such as Facebook.
More than that, I believe it offers a new paradigm for future presidential elections — one that unites instead of dividing along party lines, or through fear.
Setting aside partisan politics, TV ads, the debates and even “the issues,” the Obama campaign has used technology in unprecedented ways to put out the campaign message, widen its donor base and create “grassroots” support — if a word such as “grassroots” can be used to describe a technologically based movement.
Moderated by volunteers, the Town Hall application has three panels open on your screen when you enter: One shows the names of those in the room with you, one is for text-chatting where you can type in your opinions or respond to someone else’s and the middle one contains a place for video of speakers who wait in line to speak to the room. Those who have webcams can be seen; those with only microphones settle for being heard.
It’s not only Obama supporters being heard, either. Several nights the Town Hall has seen debate from both sides of the aisle and from undecided independents.
“We’re nonpartisan. We want people from all sides to come in,” says Bill Sarris, a moderator — and he enforces civility and compliments everyone who comes for being “great Americans,” regardless of their party affiliation.
That’s what I’m saying.
So is participant Victoria Pagan, a classics professor at University of Florida. “Perhaps most importantly,” she says, “for me the Town Hall has made me want to understand the Republican/conservative point of view. Thanks to Town Hall I want to respect the other party and its ideals. I’m reminded every night that we are many, many, many: one out of many — e pluribus unum. Town Hall puts the pluribus back in unum.”
Here Obama’s campaign has inspired something that transcends the campaign itself.
As a young voter, I love that I can meet with other voters who care: listen to what Jamaar has to say, cheer when Jackie gets her microphone working again, endorse them as presidential and vice-presidential candidates for 2020. (I’ve been promised a position as secretary of state.)
For some, Vote Obama Town Hall is the only place they can go to talk about their political beliefs; they live in areas that oppose their choice of candidate or their stances on the issues. One Town Hall participant left a department store one afternoon to find a woman in the parking lot scraping the Obama bumper sticker from the participant’s car.
It’s nice to know that when something like that happens, there’s somewhere to turn.
And whoever wins in November, that will be part of Obama’s legacy.
Not in your town, though. I mean the national, virtual “Town Hall” for Vote Obama, an independent effort inspired by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, hosted on the networking Web site Facebook.
Almost every night at 8 for the last few weeks, I’ve gone to the “Vote Obama” application on Facebook and met up with others invested in the outcome of the presidential election, many of whom come every night and some of whom are now, I’d like to think, friends.
I know I wrote last month about Internet weddings; I was against them. I still am. But this kind of thing — getting together to discuss topics of the day with people you’d never have met otherwise, from across the country — is exactly what the Internet is best at, and is, or should be, the raison d’etre of sites such as Facebook.
More than that, I believe it offers a new paradigm for future presidential elections — one that unites instead of dividing along party lines, or through fear.
Setting aside partisan politics, TV ads, the debates and even “the issues,” the Obama campaign has used technology in unprecedented ways to put out the campaign message, widen its donor base and create “grassroots” support — if a word such as “grassroots” can be used to describe a technologically based movement.
Moderated by volunteers, the Town Hall application has three panels open on your screen when you enter: One shows the names of those in the room with you, one is for text-chatting where you can type in your opinions or respond to someone else’s and the middle one contains a place for video of speakers who wait in line to speak to the room. Those who have webcams can be seen; those with only microphones settle for being heard.
It’s not only Obama supporters being heard, either. Several nights the Town Hall has seen debate from both sides of the aisle and from undecided independents.
“We’re nonpartisan. We want people from all sides to come in,” says Bill Sarris, a moderator — and he enforces civility and compliments everyone who comes for being “great Americans,” regardless of their party affiliation.
That’s what I’m saying.
So is participant Victoria Pagan, a classics professor at University of Florida. “Perhaps most importantly,” she says, “for me the Town Hall has made me want to understand the Republican/conservative point of view. Thanks to Town Hall I want to respect the other party and its ideals. I’m reminded every night that we are many, many, many: one out of many — e pluribus unum. Town Hall puts the pluribus back in unum.”
Here Obama’s campaign has inspired something that transcends the campaign itself.
As a young voter, I love that I can meet with other voters who care: listen to what Jamaar has to say, cheer when Jackie gets her microphone working again, endorse them as presidential and vice-presidential candidates for 2020. (I’ve been promised a position as secretary of state.)
For some, Vote Obama Town Hall is the only place they can go to talk about their political beliefs; they live in areas that oppose their choice of candidate or their stances on the issues. One Town Hall participant left a department store one afternoon to find a woman in the parking lot scraping the Obama bumper sticker from the participant’s car.
It’s nice to know that when something like that happens, there’s somewhere to turn.
And whoever wins in November, that will be part of Obama’s legacy.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Comment from RichyTea, and response
Take your Prozac!!
I think you forgot to take your medication before writing this article. Your insecurity and paranoia are quite evident by your 'interpretation' of the secret code. I do believe you should get out more often and breathe some fresh air.
RichyTea, Philadelphia, PA
*****
Well, if it weren't so much fun to respond to comments, I'd let this one, from the Herald Web site post of my column on Sarah Palin's evangelical code, speak for itself.
But honestly, I love getting these kinds of comments, especially when they only serve to prove my original points -- which, in this case, was that people would underestimate or dismiss the degree to which Sarah Palin's faith is likely to affect her governing.
Here RichyTea has offered a priceless example of exactly that.
And he's thrown in personal insults to boot, in lieu of facts to support the point I assume he has (perhaps that Sarah Palin isn't anyone to be afraid of, or that we can trust her to govern the country if she ended up being called on to do that).
As for my interpretation of the evangelical code, which I do admit (per your quotation marks) is an interpretation, I can only assume you are unfamiliar with evangelical subculture, RichyTea, or else that you are intimately familiar with it and do not consider it dangerous.
Also, as a brief aside, Prozac would usually be off-label for paranoia or insecurity. If you really believe I was making stuff up when I wrote about Christianese and how it functions in politics, you should've recommended something stronger, like lithium. Furthermore, if you believed I had a mental disorder, your suggestion to go out and get more fresh air would have been pretty laughable; mental disability is not cured by more walks in the park.
I feel silly parsing words so carefully here, RichyTea, but you've given me so little of substance to work with, I had to debunk the mental illness angle.
But I'm not schizophrenic, paranoid, or even insecure. As I believe I mentioned in my column, I'm an evangelical. And I'm worried and afraid, for what I think are valid reasons.
What do we know about Sarah Palin? We've had her in the public spotlight less than two months, not even long enough to let her hairstyle pass out of the news cycle into the "been done" bin.
What I've seen of her has been disappointing -- for me as a woman wishing to see a qualified, competent female leader able to articulate, say, a valid foreign policy (my deal-breaker issue, by the way) or to at least exhibit knowledge of the world around her -- and scary -- the videos of Palin speaking at church about God's will being done for an Alaskan pipeline to be built, or of her pastor praying against witchcraft with a certainty I find familiar and potentially dangerous.
The fact that I, hardly on the religious fringe of my denomination, kind of see her point with praying for what she wants done, or against bad influences, scares me. There are a lot of evangelicals out there nodding their heads at Sarah Palin thinking "she's a true believer, someone we can trust" right now. And they're likely to trust her blindly because of this, whatever her policy decisions; look at current President Bush's base of support despite what have now become wildly unpopular policies in the economy and in Iraq. I've heard more people than I'd care to remember protest that despite appearances, he must be making the right decisions, "because he's a man of God."
The fact that the media in general doesn't understand this scares me even more. I run into increasing numbers of Democrats just scratching their heads over Republican, particularly religious right, values, and unable to engage in a real discussion across the divide. My concern is that we're unable to listen to and understand each other, and may soon be unable to understand where decisions are coming from thanks to that.
It may be paranoid to believe that this kind of communication gap could end up leading to a political leader making religiously based decisions without accountability to the non-religious -- I hope it is -- but history proves that extreme conviction often precedes the impulse to make everyone else conform to those convictions, whether religious or otherwise. (The Salem witch trials and the Crusades come to mind; so does the 9/11 attack.)
Which is what I find ironic about your comment, RichyTea: It suggests that you know what it's all about, and that someone who disagrees (with whatever your interpretations are of Palin, her comments and convictions, or Scripture) is paranoid and insecure, and that you know just what would solve that problem.
I wish you'd mentioned your background in the comment. I would've liked to discuss the particulars of how our different backgrounds have informed our interpretations of the candidates and how and why they speak the way they do. That would have been an interesting discussion; it might have led to some actual dialogue on how we speak to each other and why.
As it is, I'm still glad to have gotten a comment -- even one as tailor-made to feed my "paranoia" as yours.
I think you forgot to take your medication before writing this article. Your insecurity and paranoia are quite evident by your 'interpretation' of the secret code. I do believe you should get out more often and breathe some fresh air.
RichyTea, Philadelphia, PA
*****
Well, if it weren't so much fun to respond to comments, I'd let this one, from the Herald Web site post of my column on Sarah Palin's evangelical code, speak for itself.
But honestly, I love getting these kinds of comments, especially when they only serve to prove my original points -- which, in this case, was that people would underestimate or dismiss the degree to which Sarah Palin's faith is likely to affect her governing.
Here RichyTea has offered a priceless example of exactly that.
And he's thrown in personal insults to boot, in lieu of facts to support the point I assume he has (perhaps that Sarah Palin isn't anyone to be afraid of, or that we can trust her to govern the country if she ended up being called on to do that).
As for my interpretation of the evangelical code, which I do admit (per your quotation marks) is an interpretation, I can only assume you are unfamiliar with evangelical subculture, RichyTea, or else that you are intimately familiar with it and do not consider it dangerous.
Also, as a brief aside, Prozac would usually be off-label for paranoia or insecurity. If you really believe I was making stuff up when I wrote about Christianese and how it functions in politics, you should've recommended something stronger, like lithium. Furthermore, if you believed I had a mental disorder, your suggestion to go out and get more fresh air would have been pretty laughable; mental disability is not cured by more walks in the park.
I feel silly parsing words so carefully here, RichyTea, but you've given me so little of substance to work with, I had to debunk the mental illness angle.
But I'm not schizophrenic, paranoid, or even insecure. As I believe I mentioned in my column, I'm an evangelical. And I'm worried and afraid, for what I think are valid reasons.
What do we know about Sarah Palin? We've had her in the public spotlight less than two months, not even long enough to let her hairstyle pass out of the news cycle into the "been done" bin.
What I've seen of her has been disappointing -- for me as a woman wishing to see a qualified, competent female leader able to articulate, say, a valid foreign policy (my deal-breaker issue, by the way) or to at least exhibit knowledge of the world around her -- and scary -- the videos of Palin speaking at church about God's will being done for an Alaskan pipeline to be built, or of her pastor praying against witchcraft with a certainty I find familiar and potentially dangerous.
The fact that I, hardly on the religious fringe of my denomination, kind of see her point with praying for what she wants done, or against bad influences, scares me. There are a lot of evangelicals out there nodding their heads at Sarah Palin thinking "she's a true believer, someone we can trust" right now. And they're likely to trust her blindly because of this, whatever her policy decisions; look at current President Bush's base of support despite what have now become wildly unpopular policies in the economy and in Iraq. I've heard more people than I'd care to remember protest that despite appearances, he must be making the right decisions, "because he's a man of God."
The fact that the media in general doesn't understand this scares me even more. I run into increasing numbers of Democrats just scratching their heads over Republican, particularly religious right, values, and unable to engage in a real discussion across the divide. My concern is that we're unable to listen to and understand each other, and may soon be unable to understand where decisions are coming from thanks to that.
It may be paranoid to believe that this kind of communication gap could end up leading to a political leader making religiously based decisions without accountability to the non-religious -- I hope it is -- but history proves that extreme conviction often precedes the impulse to make everyone else conform to those convictions, whether religious or otherwise. (The Salem witch trials and the Crusades come to mind; so does the 9/11 attack.)
Which is what I find ironic about your comment, RichyTea: It suggests that you know what it's all about, and that someone who disagrees (with whatever your interpretations are of Palin, her comments and convictions, or Scripture) is paranoid and insecure, and that you know just what would solve that problem.
I wish you'd mentioned your background in the comment. I would've liked to discuss the particulars of how our different backgrounds have informed our interpretations of the candidates and how and why they speak the way they do. That would have been an interesting discussion; it might have led to some actual dialogue on how we speak to each other and why.
As it is, I'm still glad to have gotten a comment -- even one as tailor-made to feed my "paranoia" as yours.
Friday, October 10, 2008
10/10/08: Palin speaks in code, and may govern by it
I never deliberately set out to turn my column into "my thoughts on taboo dinner party topics," but the recent vice presidential debate brings me reluctantly back to thoughts I expressed months ago on the place of religion in politics — namely, that interrogating politicians on their religious views helps no one, least of all the church.
But then there was Gov. Sarah Palin last week behind the debate podium, speaking Evangelical.
At the Christian college I attended, we referred to the jargon of our faith as "Christianese," often derisively. We considered it a problem that if we spoke of "the indwelling of the Holy Spirit" or used a shorthand reference to Scripture, non-Christians couldn’t understand us.
President Bush has been cited as speaking, occasionally, in a sort of evangelical code or Christianese. He’s said Christ is his favorite philosopher and considered himself "called" to the governorship of Texas. In 2002, he quoted from the gospel of John in reference to America’s prosecution of war.
The reference may have slipped past non-Christians and some media, but Evangelicals caught it.
Palin, like Bush, doesn’t seem to be worried that her words won’t be understood by the uninitiated.
I worry, though.
Palin’s "folksy charm" makes her seem unaffected and unscripted. (Darn right.) But when she said in the debate that President Reagan called the country "a city on a hill," she was almost certainly being disingenuous. Palin knows it wasn’t Reagan who first used that phrase; it was Jesus.
Evangelicals know, too.
Religiously rooted references in speeches are buzzwords for Evangelicals. Any politician able to apply Christianese appropriately can be trusted to run the country as God would want it run — or close enough. Palin is a native speaker.
When she refers to never allowing "a second Holocaust," for instance, something she’s done both in interviews and in the vice presidential debate, she is not referring to special intelligence she’s gotten from the CIA warning of a threat to Israel: She’s almost certainly basing her attitude and unwillingness to "second-guess Israel" on a literal interpretation of a Bible passage in which God says that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.
Basing foreign policy on interpretation of an Old Testament prophet’s statement may seem far-fetched, but from a vice presidential candidate who asserted that finishing the Alaskan pipeline was God’s will, the possibility needs to be taken seriously.
Christianese usually passes by unnoticed by the nonreligious and the media. When conservative religious ideas come into public notice, it can be jarring: think of Jerry Falwell’s statements after Hurricane Katrina when he blamed that natural disaster on God’s wrath, or Pat Robertson’s call to have the president of Venezuela assassinated. At the time it seemed that less conservative or religious thinkers and commentators dismissed these kinds of opinions as being held by only a few basically crazy people.
They’re not. Every Evangelical did not agree with Falwell’s "God’s wrath" theory or Robertson’s assassination suggestion, but exit polls from the past two presidential elections put white Evangelicals at between 14 percent and 23 percent of the population, and 78 percent of them voted for Bush in 2004.
Sarah Palin is talking to them, and in their own language.
But then there was Gov. Sarah Palin last week behind the debate podium, speaking Evangelical.
At the Christian college I attended, we referred to the jargon of our faith as "Christianese," often derisively. We considered it a problem that if we spoke of "the indwelling of the Holy Spirit" or used a shorthand reference to Scripture, non-Christians couldn’t understand us.
President Bush has been cited as speaking, occasionally, in a sort of evangelical code or Christianese. He’s said Christ is his favorite philosopher and considered himself "called" to the governorship of Texas. In 2002, he quoted from the gospel of John in reference to America’s prosecution of war.
The reference may have slipped past non-Christians and some media, but Evangelicals caught it.
Palin, like Bush, doesn’t seem to be worried that her words won’t be understood by the uninitiated.
I worry, though.
Palin’s "folksy charm" makes her seem unaffected and unscripted. (Darn right.) But when she said in the debate that President Reagan called the country "a city on a hill," she was almost certainly being disingenuous. Palin knows it wasn’t Reagan who first used that phrase; it was Jesus.
Evangelicals know, too.
Religiously rooted references in speeches are buzzwords for Evangelicals. Any politician able to apply Christianese appropriately can be trusted to run the country as God would want it run — or close enough. Palin is a native speaker.
When she refers to never allowing "a second Holocaust," for instance, something she’s done both in interviews and in the vice presidential debate, she is not referring to special intelligence she’s gotten from the CIA warning of a threat to Israel: She’s almost certainly basing her attitude and unwillingness to "second-guess Israel" on a literal interpretation of a Bible passage in which God says that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.
Basing foreign policy on interpretation of an Old Testament prophet’s statement may seem far-fetched, but from a vice presidential candidate who asserted that finishing the Alaskan pipeline was God’s will, the possibility needs to be taken seriously.
Christianese usually passes by unnoticed by the nonreligious and the media. When conservative religious ideas come into public notice, it can be jarring: think of Jerry Falwell’s statements after Hurricane Katrina when he blamed that natural disaster on God’s wrath, or Pat Robertson’s call to have the president of Venezuela assassinated. At the time it seemed that less conservative or religious thinkers and commentators dismissed these kinds of opinions as being held by only a few basically crazy people.
They’re not. Every Evangelical did not agree with Falwell’s "God’s wrath" theory or Robertson’s assassination suggestion, but exit polls from the past two presidential elections put white Evangelicals at between 14 percent and 23 percent of the population, and 78 percent of them voted for Bush in 2004.
Sarah Palin is talking to them, and in their own language.
Friday, October 3, 2008
10/3/08: You've had the lesson; here's the exam.
As promised, here is your Chinglish quiz. Best wishes.
1. Which is correct Chinglish?
A. I very miss you.
B. I miss you very much.
C. You are very missed.
2. What famous play does this translated (into Chinglish) monologue come from?
"What is lighting in over there window? It is east and Juliet is sunny. The sun is going up to killing moon. Moon very jealous because of less beautiful. Don't care the moon because of jealous."
3. What is the intended meaning of this sentence: "Oh, I am so confusing!"
A. I am confusing you.
B. You are confusing me.
Real-life Chinglish: "Actually, I've sort of expecting your email for a long time. If no news is good news, got news could be best news. While in China, so many so-called translation service company, but I am not sure whether they could do a good job. When you see some of their translations, you have your blood come out of your nose! Cause you are totally freak out by its confusion and illogic."
4. What is the meaning of this Chinglish translation of a famous Mao Zedong proverb? "Good good hard to study."
A. It's good to study hard.
B. It's difficult to study, but a good idea nonetheless.
C. It's important to be a well-rounded student in order to find success.
5. Which of the following is a Chinglish translation of a famous Chinese proverb?
A. A farmer picks every grain of rice.
B. Once a teacher, a parent forever.
C. Meat is your friend.
D. All of the above.
6. What famous speech has this passage been translated (into Chinglish) from?
"Our father on this country bring 87 years the new country of liberty and for the equality. Now we are fight with each other and see if we are survival with the new country and new idea."
7. What can the word "famous" be applied to in China?
A. Anything even remotely public
B. Anything that most Chinese have heard of
C. Anything that most foreigners would consider going to see on a tour of the country
8. How often should the word "very" be added to a Chinglish sentence?
A. Once in a while, to preserve its impact
B. Once a minute or so in conversation; once a page in writing
C. As much as humanly possible
Real-life Chinglish: "How are you those days? Now its time for me to write my paper and guess who is my superviser? My topic is some thing deal with learning style which is interested and there are bunch of infermation for seaching."
9. Your Chinglish-speaking friend has just told you about a tragic event. You should respond by saying:
A. Oh! What a pity!
B. That's unfortunate.
C. Wow, I'm really sorry to hear that.
10. Which of the following numbers is lucky?
A. 4
B. 8
C. 17
Extra credit: Respond to the following letter in Chinglish.
Dear lover,
I really miss the time spending with you. I am so-so many times. Yesterday, I go to the store and thinking of buy airplane ticket for seeing you. Please write again, I hope.
Yours truly,
Flower.
Answers:
1. A
2. "Romeo and Juliet"
3. B
4. C
5. D
6. The Gettysburg Address
7. A
8. C
9. A
10. B
1. Which is correct Chinglish?
A. I very miss you.
B. I miss you very much.
C. You are very missed.
2. What famous play does this translated (into Chinglish) monologue come from?
"What is lighting in over there window? It is east and Juliet is sunny. The sun is going up to killing moon. Moon very jealous because of less beautiful. Don't care the moon because of jealous."
3. What is the intended meaning of this sentence: "Oh, I am so confusing!"
A. I am confusing you.
B. You are confusing me.
Real-life Chinglish: "Actually, I've sort of expecting your email for a long time. If no news is good news, got news could be best news. While in China, so many so-called translation service company, but I am not sure whether they could do a good job. When you see some of their translations, you have your blood come out of your nose! Cause you are totally freak out by its confusion and illogic."
4. What is the meaning of this Chinglish translation of a famous Mao Zedong proverb? "Good good hard to study."
A. It's good to study hard.
B. It's difficult to study, but a good idea nonetheless.
C. It's important to be a well-rounded student in order to find success.
5. Which of the following is a Chinglish translation of a famous Chinese proverb?
A. A farmer picks every grain of rice.
B. Once a teacher, a parent forever.
C. Meat is your friend.
D. All of the above.
6. What famous speech has this passage been translated (into Chinglish) from?
"Our father on this country bring 87 years the new country of liberty and for the equality. Now we are fight with each other and see if we are survival with the new country and new idea."
7. What can the word "famous" be applied to in China?
A. Anything even remotely public
B. Anything that most Chinese have heard of
C. Anything that most foreigners would consider going to see on a tour of the country
8. How often should the word "very" be added to a Chinglish sentence?
A. Once in a while, to preserve its impact
B. Once a minute or so in conversation; once a page in writing
C. As much as humanly possible
Real-life Chinglish: "How are you those days? Now its time for me to write my paper and guess who is my superviser? My topic is some thing deal with learning style which is interested and there are bunch of infermation for seaching."
9. Your Chinglish-speaking friend has just told you about a tragic event. You should respond by saying:
A. Oh! What a pity!
B. That's unfortunate.
C. Wow, I'm really sorry to hear that.
10. Which of the following numbers is lucky?
A. 4
B. 8
C. 17
Extra credit: Respond to the following letter in Chinglish.
Dear lover,
I really miss the time spending with you. I am so-so many times. Yesterday, I go to the store and thinking of buy airplane ticket for seeing you. Please write again, I hope.
Yours truly,
Flower.
Answers:
1. A
2. "Romeo and Juliet"
3. B
4. C
5. D
6. The Gettysburg Address
7. A
8. C
9. A
10. B
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