Some of my friends will occasionally either quote from editorial columns they have read or in some cases even provided the link to them. I usually don't attempt this. But the Thomas Friedman (NYTimes) column dated I think Nov 22 but in the San Antonio paper on Nov 26 is well worth reading. So I will attempt either to link it or cite the URL.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22friedman.html?_r=1

Hey, the little icon above worked !

(Warning , this is NOT an anti-Obama right-wing rant.)

Language Inflation __ Part Deux

During the Viet Nam Conflict (or did it, too, suffer from language inflation and become a "War" even though war was never formally declared) the elite Army units were known as the "Green Berets". There was a song written about them. John Wayne starred in a movie about them. They were big stuff.
Today seemingly every podunk average infantry outfit in the US military now sports berets. {I was reminded of this this week during the several press conferences held by the Commander at Fort Hood}. Now the beret is standard issue for many military purposes. Yet at one time it was exclusive, special. I'm not denigrating Fort Hood, just the fact that standard issue military headdress is no longer the norm.

Language Inflation

As time goes by various words and phrases apparently lose their punch. People cease to appreciate them, desiring to describe something that has grown, become bigger, grander, more intense than that which had existed to date. Two simple examples should suffice.
Jesus told in the parable of "The Widow's Mite"(Matt 12:13-17) about a woman who had contributed her entire resources to alms for the poor. And He declared that what she had done was unmatched because she "gave all". At that time "all" was sufficient. He had no need to declare she had given "110%".
Up until very recent years we would be warned of the potential for contagious illness spreading by being told of flu epidemics. And we understood that this was bigger than the possibly small, contained situation wherein one might catch an illness from immediate family members. This meant that schools and churches and the marketplace could harbor carriers of whatever contagious bug was out there.
But a mere epidemic is not grand enough to categorize Swine Flu (oh wait, we do injustice to poor pigs calling it that). The H1N1 virus is not just of epidemic proportions. No! We must crown it a Pandemic for surely none of our ancestors have seen anything matching its ferocity and reach. [And yes, I get that worldwide travel perhaps render this a technically correct differentiation.] But it still seems to me that many of the historic epidemics we're read about were more ferocious than our latest pandemic ever thought of being. This just ain't what I had envisioned for a pandemic back when I was studying epidemics. Where's the boils, spitting up blood, etc??
Returning to the "110%" nonsense, one fears that this type of playing fast and loose with our vocabulary is not just silly. It confuses many people who probably don't really need to be confused. If we blow away the concept of "giving your all", then what are the bounds? How is ALL not significantly superior to 110 or 120 or 200%? If we don't have a maximum value (such as "ALL") then where's the top? My giving 110% effort can easily be topped by somebody. All they have to do is give 125%. Where can it end?
This whole concept is, of course , not significantly different from the tendency in recent decades for "grade inflation" in schools. But I grow weary and don't wish to tackle it tonight.

Copycat Cable News

I know I've railed about this in the past. This latest example just reinforces and proves my earlier points. The producers and decision makers at the two CNN channels and at MSNBC and FOX never cease to amaze me. Early yesterday they acted like they were filming the scoop of the year. I'm talking about the two-hour balloon ride in Colorado during which the pundits and commentators breathlessly told us of the innocent six year old boy who was an unwitting passenger on the runaway balloon.
Like many televised car chases featuring local police and state troopers, the video we watched was uniform and mostly unenlightening. Toward the end, though, one side of the balloon deflated some, rendering it a giant beret flying across the Colorado high plains.
But the cable news boys stayed on the case. (And why did both CNN networks feel obligated to do this? Were they afraid one wasn't enough?) Their pronouncements were all based on the mistaken assumption that the lad was, in fact, in the basket or box at the bottom of the balloon. That's understandable enough and even forgivable enough. But what defies logic is that they proceeded to spout all manner of idiotic speculation in the absence of hard facts and news. One network (it only gets to remain anonymous here because I can't remember which one) compared the flight of this balloon to the "Ghost Flight" of Payne Stewart years ago. Several of them mused as to whether the boy would have any role to play in trying to effect a soft landing of the balloon. And all of them commented endlessly about the weather, that "10,000 feet" up it would be much cooler than the 70 degrees on the ground. (Of course, most of them omitted that "the ground" was/is over 5000 feet up there.) Was there sufficient oxygen for the boy to survive?? Would he "freeze"? In hindsight, it was a bit comical, though we couldn't know that at the time -- the fact that the balloon was empty.
Whether this ends up being identified as a planned prank by the family or merely confusion by a weird family, we don't know today. But my point is, cable news should abandon their senses when these events begin. They should act and think with some degree of intelligence. And yesterday, I didn't see it from any of them.

Obama agrees with Nave

I was going to post this as one of the followup responses to my post a few days ago about the President's health care initiatives. But then I decided it warranted its own separate "headline".
In his speech to the joint session of Congress the other night, President Obama used the argument I had offered in that previous post, that they ought to be comparing the value of "public option" in health care to the existence of both public, government colleges and private (for profit) colleges. Yeah, President!
I never did claim, and still don't, that this was my exclusive idea or eve that I was the first person to think of it. But my blog post did occur several days before any of the networks or cable pundits had ever even thought of it or uttered the words. Therefore, I think I'm on safe ground to go ahead and claim ownership of the idea and to magnanimously share it with the President.

MJ Update?

I can't find it in the television schedules and listings. When and where will be this week's burial of Michael J??
I've become hooked on them. Don't think the mere retro-looks at his life & his music will be enough.

"Public Option"

Haven't written anything political in a while. Had a pleasant two week road trip to see relatives and attend a wedding Then had to get in high gear for start of new semester preparing to dispense "discount knowledge at the junior college". But I have been paying some attention to the discussions about proposed legislation on health care . Particularly the "public option".
I'm mildly surprised that one comparison has not been made. (Maybe it has and I just haven't found it on the Internet. I'm sure none of the cable and broadcast pundits have mentioned it. Nor have I seen any elected politician quoted as offering this up. So I'll lay claim to it as mine.
Proponents of "public option" plans believe that existing for-profit insurance companies would be challenged by the direct competition of a government supported plan for the uninsured and underinsured to obtain health insurance coverage. They think this competition would be good and healthy.
Opponents claim it would be unfair because the government sujpported plan would be subsidized by taxpayer funds and that private insurance plans would not be able to compete. Therefore, they claim, the private plans would wither and all that would be left would be the public option and it would be a hated "single-payer" scheme in "public option" clothing.
My comparison is this. What has happened over the course of the last 150 years or so with regard to college education? Don't we have both tax supported, subsidized colleges and purely private colleges and hybrids of private schools that accept some public money? Isn't this comparable to what it would be like with health care? Have all the private colleges been forced out of business because public and state schools are cheaper than the private colleges? I don't think so. Even at double the cost or worse of public education, many private schools get far more applicants than they can take each year.