"How do we remedy the Situation?"

Or, As Shara said later, this about "the paucity of langauge".


From: shara_thome@hotmail.com
To: ihentschel@austin.rr.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 6:46 AM
Subject: shara_thome@hotmail.com has shared: Theodore Dalrymple on the Gift of Language
....but how to remedy the situation? Dumbfounded here.
Theodore Dalrymple on the Gift of Language Source: austrolabe.com

For starters, let me say that I am "dumbfounded" by discovering there were so many Muslims living amongst the Aussies. But I suppose I shouldn't be, because Muslims can now threaten Danish cartoonists and cause ghetto riots in Paris. Be that as it may, that there is so much sudden concern for how to deal with the "Muslim problem" and the Muslim language(s), in places like down under and elsewhere, is perplexing. I say this because in Australia, where the concern for the Muslim invasion gets front page coverage while they slaughter, ignore and denigrate the aborigine; in the U.S. , where we sought to obliterate the native Americans and today force them into encampments, while still not dealing with our history of slavery and contemporary racism ( and the language obstacles involved there, bro); in Scandanavia the Nordic past is being ameliorated and watered down to appease the Muslim outsiders; in France they are busier worrying about headscarve etiquette than they are the quality of education and have almost foresworn the problems with the Moroccan and Algerian populations in favor of the Arab refugees; in England the disparities over Scots and the Irish have been put aside to worry about the employment and education requirements of the Muslim Indian refugees, and in Germany, the concern with Turks has displaced recognition of Jewish issues ...Nearly overnight, it seems, the world is obsessed with acclimating to, absorbing, yielding to and incorporting the culture and language of a people we regarded as ignorant, backward, infidel in nature,bloodthirsty and heathen, not so long ago.

Would that we were so afraid of the perils of rampant Christianity.

Note: In earlier centuries,the Spaniards (in particular), always solved the problem of cultural and linguistic assimilation by simply trying to make everyone Catholic. That insidious and predatory (and arrogant) practice, coupled with the Inquisition, has not worked out so well, except to make Mexico City a safe place for the Pope to visit. And I dare say that catechism classes for the masses of Muslims will not get very far.

As for your query, "but how to remedy the situtation?" , I am stubbornly and narrow-mindedly in the camp of Robert Frost, on this one. Disregarding for a moment the question of which tongue do you speak when you are in which land, "When in Rome" rings a bell. If you are visiting, simple attempts at the mother tongue are acceptable and errors easily overlooked, since everyone knows you are going home soon. But if you reside, more less permanently, in a land where the mother tongue is other than your own, it would behoove you to learn it and speak it as best you can ( and my bias is that Hispanics in America are not excepted). Anything less is a gesture of disrespect. But back to Frost:

Frost said (approximately) that "to teach a person to write is to teach a person to think". And thinking, real thinking (I think), is encumbent upon all of us. And if you think, you arrive at ideas. And if you have ideas you must find a way to express them. And for that you need words, and often new words. The current mood that has been identified in the U.S. as "anti-intellectualism"reveals how not thinking precludes new ideas: recent town halls are regurgitations of old thinking and old ideas and old words.

If our educational systems, world-wide, (to mimick Ms. Scheslinger) were to focus upon teaching and enabling children to think and to ask "why", to be inquisitive and become logical searchers and researchers of meaning, they would learn to use the proper, appropriate and substantive words required to promote better understanding. (I might suggest, at this point, that immersion in the Bible or the Quoran does not lead to this lofty end. Thinking requires a working knowledge of cause and effect, and neither of these includes a clue as to either.)

Hedges (as in the piece I sent you), Safire (too bad), Carlin (way too bad), Chomsky, Maher, Reich, Buckley and Vonnegut are all some examples of linguists (my broken record is playing, again) who took (and take) the time to find the words to express their ideas. To them, I say, "Right on!", and "Awesome!" (Think about those two expressions as they relate to cause and effect)

And there are enough people down under who speak that almost-South Carolina garble the Aussies call "English" that any self-respecting Muslim ought to be able to pick it up. Blimey. I'll have a Foster's.

Not NecessarilyThe News

And people wonder why newspapers are dying....I saw this headline
Defense Bill, Lauded by White House, Contains Billions in Earmarks(article below)in the WaPo this morning, and when I saw "billions" in earmarks, I thought, "Holy Shit!", stopped and read the story. It turns out that the "billions" is $2.65B out of $636B. If you have a calculator, you will see that that the earmark amount (still obscene in the manner in which it is being proposed) amounts to something like .04184% of the total defense budget bill under consideration. The Post has ponied up an eye-popping headline which misleads and agitates but largely misses the point, while stirring up, no doubt, false conservative ire over big government and waste.

The "obscene" number really is the $636B, which is nearly as much as the two TARP bills that were passed. Those were done with great fanfare and furor and debate, that this gets nary a notice. In fact, the headline says that it is "Lauded by White House". Well jolly good. Why? It never comments about that.

Let's see: that $636B for one year of "defense" (which is offensive to most) is only 80% of $800B for ten years of national health care would cost (or only 71% if you use the $900B estimate from the GAO), or only $80B or $90B per year to fund and yet we cannot even get a reasonable bill passed to enable, enact and accomplish that, in any reasonable form that does not throw billions in profits back at the insurance companies. Good work, WaPo. You make your industry proud.

And speaking of health care and insurance reform, there was only one (1) article that I could find concerning those issues. Here is the byline: In Delivering Care, More Isn't Always Better, Experts Say, by By Ceci ConnollyWashington Post Staff Writer . The thrust (if there is one)is this:
Medical professionals say the fundamental problem in the nation's health-care system is the widespread misuse and overuse of tests, treatments and drugs that drive up prices, have little value to patients, and can pose serious risks. The question, they say, is not whether there will be rationing, but rather what will be rationed, and when and how.
To begin with, just out of curiousity, who is Ceci Connolly and what qualifies he/she to pontificate on health care? May I see some credentials, please? Or perhaps a birth certificate? Is Ceci even an American name? Is this journalism or idle time gossip?
Secondly, this story an as old as a 60 Minutes program on the subject from two years ago. We have heard this old saw 1,000 times before, and it has not changed, one iota. And there is no substantive discussion in the article about either single-payer or the public option or how much money Max Baucus has in his pocket from insurance companies. The WaPo is making damn certain that we stay as wholly unfocused as possible. Journalism should help us define what is wrong in such a way that a corrective can be envisioned. This article merely reheats already overcooked leftovers. It is a half-eaten Big Mac, retrieved from a dumpster. This makes this newspaper (I use the term loosely)the Washington Posthumous, publishing obits instead of birth announcements.
Both stories provide unspectacular reporting about unspectacular non-news. They are misleading and erroneously fanciful and take up space, while wasting energy. And while so many bemoan the death of the newspaper media, and Obama speaks lately (and glibly)of bailing out the industry, the WaPo is not doing much to further its' cause when it publishes tripe like this. Maybe we should put an earmark in the defense bill for that bailout. A story about that would surely make the front page..on Saturday.

----- Original Message -----
From: ihentschel@austin.rr.com
To: ihentschel149@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 7:43 AM


Message from sender: really?
Defense Bill, Lauded by White House, Contains Billions in Earmarks
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Sen. Thad Cochran's most recent reelection campaign collected more than $10,000 from University of Southern Mississippi professors and staff members, including three who work at the school's center for research on polymers. To a defense spending bill slated to be on the Senate floor Tuesday, the...

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Wisdom borrowed from Bageant

Nice to know I am not alone in my musings. Noam Chomsky has been telling us, for years, that we have a one party system, called the "corporatocracy" and nobody listens. If , like myself and many others I know, are on SS, SSDI and/or Medicare, this should not be a pleasant read.

When "capitalism" ceases to be entrepreurship, but instead morphs into greedy, limitless and shortsighted, quick gain expansionist enterprise, we have lost our way.

We found out much too late that "compassionate conservatism" and "trickle down economics" and cheerful Clintonite free trade agendas were a bunch of bunk, that, altogether led us into our economic disaster and it is time to consider some alternatives. One would be what I have come to call "humanitarian, community based capitalism", where we are able to say to the profiteers, "OK. Thanks. Enough is enough", and we level the playing field and give everyone a chance. But, as I seem to recall, that is called socialism, Marxism or communism, and then people want to hang me from a light pole for even mentioning the possibilities.

I think that the much ballyooed "free market economy" is intent on making certain that some people are "more freeer" than others...sorta like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm who were more equal than others. And then current day conservatives, Libertarians and other ideologues warn us that we should be afraid of Obama and socialism? It is precisely that inverse, obtuse logic that drives Wall St., General Electric and CocaCola.

And let's see: by my latest reckoning, the U.S. goverment owns most of Genral Motors. And the largest auto company in Russia is state owned as well. And then there is China....But I must stop here: I must run down to Home Despot and buy the plastic plumbing fixture I can no longer buy from the local hardware store that is no longer here.


Subject: AlterNet: There Was Nice Talk About 'Change' and 'Hope' But the Money Party There Was Nice Talk About 'Change' and 'Hope' But the Money Party Won Again> http://www.alternet.org/politics/142840>