As I sit around waiting for reruns of 'Different Strokes' , a couple of things came to mind.
-I was watching a children's network the other day and was aghast at what I saw. Rather what I heard. The English language is sinking hard and fast. None of those kid hosts were able to string a sentence or phrase without resorting to 'yeah', 'you know', 'whatever' and the classic 'um'. "Hey,, they're just kids!" someone will say. That's my point. These kids will end up on the radio one day reading our news. In fact, I hear this on television and radio all the time with adults. I don't know about the person reading this but people who are introduced as experts only to start a sentence with 'um' loses credibility with me.
-The other day the 'Nature of Things' was on the CBC. It was about a wildlife biologist and environmentalist who followed the caribou across frozen tundra.
At one point, one of them said 'we should not be here. This is sacred ground.' So go home, I thought. It's fricken caribou. Sacred my ass. This is not what shocked me though. It was a scene when one of the weirdos attempted to show some humour and make a political statement (who isn't these days?) by flaunting a Dubya doll. As his doll was sticking out of the tent the moron said "here's one place you can't police.' Or something to that effect. I immediately changed the channel. It really how amazing how politics creeps into every facet of our lives because droopy liberals hate Bush. I'll say it here and I'll say it over and over. The only ones who end up with eggs on their face are the ones who act this way. They reveal more about themselves then about Bush. They should really consider not eating caribou brains.
-It did remind me of an article I had just read moments earlier in the 'National Interest' which reminds me of how selective people in the aforementioned can be when it comes to politics. They have chosen to hate a person based on perceptions and rationalize from that point forward.
Take Afghanistan. Not one positive is ever mentioned about Afghanistan. How the country is moving forward and how it is committed to joining the world of nations. Further, the Afghan experience, if successful, will be America's first success at nation building in a volatile part of the world. They said it could not be done - though I firmly thought is could. Especially considering Afghanistan's standing in steady progress in the pot-world era until the Soviets made a mess of things.
Western pundits did the mistake of, and I argued this from the onset, of applying the Soviet experience on the any potential American involvement. As we move to Iraq, people are fixated on three alleged things -the lie, oil and revenge factor of the war. As America and Iraq press forward during a delicate and violent phase, anti-war junkies become increasingly irrelevant.
Worse, they serve to go against the interests of Iraqi's. If they truly cared they would use a 'We did not agree with Bush but we have to ensure Iraq succeeds' ethos. They, not surprisingly, are not. They are, as I have said, anti-Bush and this is what drives their platforms which permeates right up until the Democratic party. Hence, they lose elections. Their reckless disregard with history (by this I mean their revisionism) only serves to work against their own troops and civilian Iraqi's. In Iraq, they were quick to use the Vietnam analogy. Of course, military historians were amused by such attempts at finding parallels in history.
In the end, even if both Iraq and Afghanistan become success stories, I doubt very much the media (both mainstream and alternative) ad the anti-Bush/War self-serving quacks will ever give credit to Dubya. They'll find other reasons to attribute the success.
Last but not least. Did Michael Corleone have to kill 'Fredo?
These are not new phenomena. The language has been devolving since 1066.
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