A Vocabulary Lesson

And not in any particular odor (yes, some it stinks)

Obama is the new POTUS, and at least for awhile, the POTUS is the new cool. America is (mostly) happy. I think it is time to have some fun.

I have often been called a cynic, and am just as often asked why I am so damned skeptical. Let’s just start with these, to set the record straight.

NOTE: I used a Webster’s for almost all of this erudite research. Other sources noted as required.

Cynic: “Doglike”; a person who acts out of selfishness. I think it was Oscar Wilde who defined a cynic as “someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.” This is not me. I know the cost of nothing because I have no money. I know the value of everything because I have so little of anything.

Skeptic: “Thoughtful; curious”. This is much higher on my list of endeavors. I think it helps to tone down my malice aforethought.

However, I have also been called a curmudgeon: This comes from the French, meaning “evil heart”. In today’s parlance, the definitions are” avaricious; churlish; miser; cantankerous”. I like the cantankerous part: it warms my evil heart. But to drive home my points, I must exhibit tenacity: to hold fast; adhesive; sticky; retentiveness. This may well explain why many of you so often implore me to “give it up”. I would say I am sorry, but you would all know I couldn’t mean it and it is not at all curmudgeonly.

On to the vocabulary business. Let’s begin with:

Bail-out. In earlier times, this phrase was meant to describe the act of bailing water OUT of a sinking boat. As applied to AIG, Chrysler, GM. Citibank, et.al. it seems to have become pouring more water back INTO the sinking boat. I think this is called an adverse action which has an inverse effect. And people who are in the money business were supposed to have gotten their feet wet long enough ago to know the better. But it will probably take a lengthy and expensive trial to determine who is actually at fault, and then a very large crane to raise the long-sunken boat, much like we pulled the Airbus 360 out of the Hudson.

Transparency: A recent and popular favorite if you are an Obamite (does obamite have a number in the periodic table of elements?). I know that transparency means that you are supposed to be able to see through the veil of secrecy and obfuscation afforded by government lackeys and bankers and lobbyists, but it is simply the wrong word. Let me just remind you that the plastic wrap you put over a dish of leftovers is transparent as well. It seals the packaged substances, keeps out fresh air and lets you put them away in the cold and dark of the fridge. But, even though you can see what’s in the package, you can’t touch the contents, it remains largely out of sight, can easily be forgotten and can grow moldy and of no further use. (Sounds to me, skeptic that I am, like some Senators I could name). The dictionary says that when something is “transparent”, it has been “uncloaked”. And, being so uncloaked, it becomes obvious: in the way as to be easy to see or understand; plain; evident. I would be very happy if the Obama gang would stop offering me transparent views and uncloak a few things, to make them easier to see, make them more plain and much more evident. If no one has noticed, the first $350B of the TARP program was so “transparent” that it completely disappeared behind a cloak of Bush-Cheney-Paulson-Bernanke smoke. Obvious also means to meet a certain criteria, and withstand or prevent obfuscation. I guess we missed that one. And I am not being cynical…I am being thoughtful.

Now here is a word that can open a delightful can of entomological worms: Perseverance. In its noblest of forms, this word means to continue on a given course in spite of difficulties and setbacks. The new Pres just loves this one. And so do the jubilant masses. However, in the midst of perseverance is “severe”, and I, in my thoughtfulness, don’t believe that most Americans grasp, in any realistic fashion, how severe matters are, economically, culturally and societally. And then the emotional cascade begins to form like this:

Despite the efforts to imbue (to soak; wet; to fill (the mind); permeate),

People will become disillusioned ( disenchanted, dismayed)

Because so much of the rhetoric and the slowness of the efforts will cause wide-spread dismay (removed from power; subdue; defeated)

And they will be unable to sustain (to uphold; keep in existence; prolong)

Because their enthusiasm and momentum will soon abate (to beat down; pull down; put an end to; to deject; lessen; diminish)

Because they have become dismayed (subdued, defeated).

All of which means they will have lost the fortitude to persevere. Well, crap. This is not what the forecast says.

Why the glum outlook, you may ask? Well, my thoughtful skepticism has moved me to uncloak the obvious, to peek behind the curtain of double-speak and to stop looking at the lack of transparency in the bail-out scenario, and to identify the absurd (clearly untrue; inconsistent with reason; contradicts obvious truth) influences which seem to dominate our day to day reasoning.

We are bombarded and assaulted by broken down ideologies and paradigms which promote apathy (from the Gr: to suffer; 1. lack of emotion;2.lack of interest; listless condition;indifference), which in turn results in an atrophy (to waste away; fail to grow, from the Gr: “To nourish”, hence, insufficient nourishment),and eventually societal entropy (available energy diminishes in a closed system, or a loss of energy available for useful work in a system undergoing change)[www.thefreedictionary.com/entropy]

Put simply, everything goes to hell and nobody gives a rat’s ass.

HOWEVER, once you have set out to identify these absurdities in our culture (and perhaps to measure your life by them, as I have begun doing), you can learn to be alert, responsive, reactionary and as vocally and openly objectionable as those who spew them. But first you must learn to be aware of the temptation to accept the temporal (transitory, temporary) nature of your daily intake of (largely useless) information and then resist the temptation to gravitate toward the immediately mind-numbing (atrophy causing) nature of the sensational (vague without reference to specific stimulus; external stimulation; sensation of happiness). Let me give you a few examples of what to watch out for:

The “bail-out” isn’t. There will be no miracle cure and pain will be in the offing. Any other understanding of the depth of situation is absurd.

Transparency isn’t transparent. It is merely an illusion of transparency designed to give you the sensation of happiness (see above). To believe that is to believe in the absurd.

Joe Biden says Americans should “work harder”. This is an insensitive and self-aggrandizing statement that befits an idiot looking for re-election. My friend Barbara has suggested that if he had said “greater participation”, it would have sounded better. As it stands, it is absurd. He should have asked us to persevere.

One prominent right-wing radio talker has called for the Obama administration “to fail”. This stretches the definition of absurdity to obscenely inappropriate behavior. No one needs this much sensationalism.

A Wall Street executive has just remodeled his office in an amount in excess of $1M. Citibank has just taken delivery a multi-million dollar private jet, manufactured in France. These are both absurd and obscene.

Nancy Pelosi has said that she has broken through the “marble ceiling” of Washington. No she hasn’t: if she had, her head would have broken open and she would understand more about America and its problems than she s does about being re-elected. Absurd.

Senate and House Republicans, after already having been given much more in tax-cuts in the “bail-out” than is warranted, are asking for even more. These cuts will go to the top fractional percentile of the populace who control a disproportionately large share of the national wealth. Go back and re-read the definition of absurd.

I could go on, but the “absurdity identifier framework” I have vocabularized (?) here can be applied to evaluate almost any news story or lightning bolt of information that comes your way. If you begin with the candid assumption that most news is both temporal and sensational to begin with (it sells), then you must first ask yourself if what you have just heard/read/seen will perpetuate (make lasting; enduring forever, indefinitely) an ideology or a paradigm that will cause apathy, atrophy and entropy, and then attempt to make a determination about why this person or organization was moved to say/broadcast/publish it (I think publishit should be a word). Examples:

John Boehner has said that the clause in the proposed “bail-out’ bill, which allocated health care money to help with unwanted pregnancies and family planning is simply millions of dollars for “contraceptives”. Absurd. He is perpetrating a baby-momma stereotype and wants to be re-elected by his religious right-wing constituents.

The right wing has suggested that re-funding the Pell Grants would be a waste of money. Absurd. Pell Grants make college education possible for the most unlikely of candidates from low-income families, like, say that of Barack Obama?

There are no “shovel-ready” projects. Absurd. How quickly did we re-build the collapsed bridge on I-35 in Minneapolis? I think the Republicans were about to have a convention, there.

I learned a new word this week, and “uncloaked” a new perspective on the non-transparency of another. Adventitious means accidental; extrinsic; not inherent. I am struck that most of the sensational (and therefore usually temporal) “news” that I get is adventitious. It comes from and is perpetuated by some one or some thing extraneous to the issue at hand. It usually serves to distract and disperse perseverance. It propagates eventual apathy, dismays and disillusions.

Anything said by Dana Perino: absurd. The jury is still out on the new guy.

A party-crashing Republican, at an Obama celebration party Barbara and I attended last Saturday, bowled me over. As the other guests around the room made toasts to the new administration and expressed optimism about the future, post-W, this man took the time to offer up a lengthy statement of praise for John McCain, because he had “served his country so well”. This was not only absurd; it was in extremely poor taste. If I had had a rope and tree…but that would have been absurd as well.

This leads me to the word most closely allied with Transparency: accountability. I fear this is more cloak and swagger. Accountability is wholly dependent upon those who do the accounting, and we all know that ‘Figures lie and liars figure”: Think ENRON. As the great bail-out debate rages on, and transparency is seen not be, all I can say is that what you think you see may not be what you will eventually get, and it most certainly will not be what you thought you paid for.

Please do not ask me why I offered no definitions for ideology or paradigm: I was just too apathetic to look them up.

Please remember: I am not being cynical here, just skeptically thoughtful. Isn’t that absurd?